Devil May Cry:Rise of Kylanos
by Kylandor
Summary: Only a month after entrusting Yamato to Nero another Demon intends to take the blade to open another Hellgate in another place. Not only is Dante forced to head back to Fortuna but all while fighting two half-demons like him with two very different agendas. It's going to be a long day. Set after Devil May Cry 4 & Before Devil May Cry 2.
1. Chapter 1

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being a separate, non-canon timeline regardless of what anyone else says, unless they make it up with a true DMC5 that ends up with the real Dante kicking the "New" Dante's ass)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view**

* * *

Chapter 1 - Regrets

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Unknown Location - 8:15 pm

* * *

Several men were in a circle, with red hooded robes, chanting some ancient language as in the center of their circle was a woman no older than 22, clothed casually with moderately long hair, stark green eyes and a depressed expression on her face which seemed of French and Italian ancestry, her hands tied behind her back.

Suddenly gunfire erupted inside a monastery like structure and one of the men in the circle shouted "Get in there and stop him! We must not be interrupted again!" and with those words several men not part of the circle gathered rifles and pistols and charged into the building and less than six seconds later a hailstorm of gunfire ensued.

* * *

POV Change

* * *

His name, Raymond Zenji, his profession, none. He was hidden to the world, hiding always ever since he was 13. Roughly the same height as the girl he was trying to save which made him moderately short for his age which was also the same as the girl. Short Black Hair and Dark Brown Eyes, his ancestry mostly latin though with a brighter skin tone despite his facial features.

Ducking behind a wall to avoid constant gunfire from reinforcements he quickly drew his sidearm, holstered on his right hip and fired a few shots blind and when the gunfire receded he holstered the pistol and with his now free hand grabbed the lower grip of his M4 and waited no more than 2 seconds before firing at anyone who poked their head out, hitting them each with one shot to the head, dropping them immediately. One blindfired, Ray quickly ducks in cover and fires a burst blind hoping to keep his enemy in cover which succeeds and as he takes better aim and ceases fire, the cultist takes a peek himself only to see a flash and then darkness as Ray pulls the trigger on his rifle once.

Quickly dashing past the dead men Ray's eyes are met with a horrible sight. The lead cultist impales the girl through the stomach with a type of longsword and mutters words in latin just as a bullet makes it's way to the lead cultist's head from Ray's rifle. Immediately charging and firing at several cultists gathered around the girl suddenly an explosion of red energy moving like furious winds erupts from the girl or more specifically, the sword in her stomach. The shockwave kills the nearby cultists through concussive force and sends Ray flying into another who drew a sword hoping to catch Ray with it, and succeeded. Ray ignored the pirecing pain in his chest as well as the sight of a metal blade protruding out the front of his chest, just shy of his heart and draws a combat knife strapped around his left arm and with his right hand thrusts it into the cultist's heart and with a quick forward jolt of his hand, ends the cultist's life.

Dropping from a combination of pain and blood loss he rolls to his side and notices the gravity is injury as he coughs blood. The blade missed his heart, but pierced his left lung. Looking in the girl's direction he is met with a surprising sight equally disturbing as it is satisfying. The girl is holding the same sword that should have killed her in her right hand, her wound healed as if it were never there, in it's place merely a small tear in her black denim jacket. But the real disturbing sight are the black feathered wings making themselves known from her upper back and when she turns to face Ray, her eyes, once green are now a glowing red shade with a demonic aura about them which also gives itself off of the girl completely.

She rests the sword in a sheath that formed on her left hipside and helps Ray up who, not wanting to cough blood on her, decides to swallow it instead, barely accomplishing the feat. "Laura, are you alright?" are the words coming from his mouth. She nods and carefully pulls the rapier sword from Ray's back and immediately wraps her arms around him, sending a jolt of red electricity through him, the pain nearly unbearable as not only does Ray's mortal wound heal, but a surge of energy fills him, burning like hell itself as his eyes temporarily shift from Dark Brown to the same demonic color and appearance as Laura's before returning to it's natural color.

Ray recovers after a minute and turns to face his childhood friend, saying "What do you know, the insane bastards were right, partially at least. We should leave while we can." Laura shook her head with a look both slightly confused, and determined before saying "I'm sorry but we have to part ways here. They were right completely but they misinterupted the legend. They thought the key would appear as an item, but the truth is that I was the key to begin with, they just needed to activate the powers that were dormant within me. Both myself and the sword they used for the ritual are what will bring the demon Kylanos back to the world."

Ray shook off the confusion he felt after a moment and replied "What the hell are you saying? That after twelve years of constant fighting and hiding you suddenly decide to forsake our friendship over some twisted legend? Did all of the times between their attacks mean nothing? We're supposed to be friends Laura."

A tear fell from Laura's right eye as she said with a slightly shaken voice "And that's why I saved your life Ray, but perhaps, considering what is to come I shouldn't have. But with what I've done to you there might be a chance you could be accepted in the world to come. I don't have a choice, I'm sorry." Before Ray could reply she took flight with her wings at an astonishing pace, being out of visual sight only two seconds after leaving.

Gripping his hand so tightly the veins and arteries looked as it they would tear from his skin as he let out a scream, but the scream seemed involuntary further down as the red electricity crackled through Ray on it's own, a longsword formed on his back as if magnetically attached despite the lack of any such device.

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Two Weeks Later, Devil May Cry, Character Change - Dante

* * *

Reading a magazine, with his feet on the desk with his customized twin M1911A1 Colt .45 Automatics laying side by side on the desk, one black rimmed and the other white rimmed, Ebony and Ivory respectively. Hanging to the left of his head (From his point of view) is a blade with an organic look, the sword known for the name of it's maker, Sparda.

Dante himself was too busy reading the magazine, he was oddly in the mood to catch up on new firearm designs both because he wouldn't mind a new toy to try out on the legions of hell and because he was, quite obviously, bored out of his mind.

The door opened and in walked a woman about his age, a dark brown that barely shows the brown, with a pair of differently colored eyes, one blue and one red, a white jacket and a pair of sunglasses that were currently rested on her hair and not covering her eyes.

A sigh came from her mouth as Dante said "Unless you're moonlighting as Pizza Delivery, I'm not really in the mood to chat right now Lady." Lady replied "I'm here because there's a job, assuming you care about money." Dante replied without even lowering the magazine "Isn't it Morrison's job to push the offers not on the phone to me? Besides, I'm reading."

Lady walks up and snatches the magazine from Dante's hand who replies "Hey, I was reading that!" Lady simply placed a newspaper in Dante's hand and tapped the main page, the front page news titled "Demon raids the Vatican" the title caught Dante's attention slightly and he said "Those two are never going to get along are they?" Lady replies "Since you seemingly don't intend to read it, this demon appeared more human save for black wings and a talent for deflecting bullets with a sword and specifically took an ancient spear which matches the description as the Spear of Destiny, a powerful Devil Arm that I've been trying to track down for a year."

Dante shrugs and replies "What's so important about this spear that it'll keep your attention for so long?" Lady replies "Because, like Yamato it was used to seal a Hellgate like the one you destroyed, only the location is different. As the legend goes, since you never bother with this kind of stuff, Sparda used it and one of the demon emperor's most loyal general's own weapon to seal that said demon along with his army in a monastery in Tibet."

Dante scratches his head and says "And you want me to go all the way over there and stop this guy from undoing the seal." Lady replied "Actually the demon is female and there seems to be two more items she needs to open the gate." With those words said she points at Rebellion.

Dante laughs out loud for a moment and then says "You're kidding me? My sword was also used to seal a gate to hell? That means this crazy gal is going to storm this place sooner or later. What's next on her shopping list?" Lady replied "Yamato, which means she'll likely head to Fortuna either before or after, most likely before as that was the direction she was seen taking flight towards. Do you still think that kid can bear the burden?" Dante replied "The kid's good but still, a little help now and then isn't too bad, especially when it pays, and this better be paying Lady, not like last time."

Lady replied "As I recall you didn't seem to have too much of a problem with it." Dante got up and threw on his red trenchcoat, holstered Ebony &amp; Ivory and rested Rebellion on his back before saying "So are you going to hold the fort or am I going to have to call Trish?"

Lady sighed and said "No promises, unless you're paying."

Dante gave a slight smirk and walked out the door without replying, heading towards his car which he noticed Morrison was standing by it. Dante replied "If it's a job I already got one." Morrison replies "Actually I came to tell you that an acquaintance of mine is also looking for this demon you're going after." Dante shrugged and replied "Let me guess, you originally brought the job to Lady and now that she's passed the buck to me you're going to tell me what you told her."

Morrison sighed, tipped his hat slightly down and said "Don't underestimate this guy, I'm sure he could give you a good fight and he intends to take the demon alive."

Dante rubbed his chin slightly and said "Alive, huh? Well you said I couldn't survive the Devil's Prison a while back and I proved you wrong didn't I? Besides, this might be interesting." Morrison replied "One more thing, This guy has good intentions I believe, and he's not a rookie, he's seen as much combat as you, in a shorter period of time but more constant and on a regular basis which as I remember was every 3 years of his life since he was ten." Dante replies while getting in his car "So he's got issues then, I'll just humble him a bit if he interferes and then get this over with."

Morrison nods and walks out of the way as Dante starts the engine and drives off towards the highway, heading towards Fortuna.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being a separate, non-canon timeline regardless of what anyone else says, unless they make it up with a true DMC5 that ends up with the real Dante kicking the "New" Dante's ass)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 2 - Bad Timing

* * *

Fortuna, 11:10 AM - Character Change - Nero

* * *

A blow sent Nero back slightly as he regained his footing against his assailant who continued to remind Nero of his first fight with Dante, Nero felt like he was being toyed with.

The Black Haired male in front of him seemed to only be showcasing a talent for swordsmanship, parrying Nero's strikes and then kicking him back when an opening presented itself, different than both Nero and Dante's tactics which rely on outright evasion even though Dante does occasionally use defensive parries or uses his energy to generate a red defensive sphere which assorbs the energy of oncoming attacks.

Nero was just glad Kyrie wasn't here to see him be on the losing side of a fight, and he has only 15 minutes before he would be late for dinner, again, and he'd never hear the end of it.

Nero sent a four way attack with his customized sword from the now-extinct Order of the Sword, his blade bore the name Red Queen. Deciding to fight a bit more seriously Nero activates a devil trigger which shows a foggy image of a demon over him, with a Katana with the name Yamato being held in his right hand which isn't human in appearance, but fully demonic compared to the rest of Nero which is human. The man in front of him shows a serious face and says "Oh, good, I don't have to scour the city for Yamato now."

Nero grins slightly as he sends a three way slash combo which, whilst a distance from the assailant causes torrents of energy to fly at him which he evades and seemingly shapeshifts his longsword into a Katana similar to Yamato whilst saying "How about some introductions before the dance? My name is Ray Zenji."

Nero gives a smirk while replying "Nero, the guy who's going to kick your ass!" with those words he dashed towards Ray whilst at the same time swinging Red Queen in a move he calls a Streak, Red Queen is also enveloped in a slightly transparent Katana which resembles Yamato in every way save for it's blue haze color though the extended shell also seems to be cutting through the wind, increasing Red Queen's reach as Ray parries the attack and sends a burst of energy from his katana, sending Red Queen flying into a nearby car as Nero decides to continue his onslaught using Yamato, slashing three times only to be parried by Ray's weapon, which had to be a Devil Arm to sustain such attacks from Yamato.

Ray dashes back after parrying which gives Nero an idea, the only thing he hasn't tried so far is seeing if Ray can parry bullets and so he quickly draws his Dual-Barrel Revolver Blue Rose and fires once, only for Ray to intercept the bullets with a firearm of his own, a customized Desert Eagle .50 Calibur pistol which is silver plated with demon styled engravings. Nero unleashes more rounds, using his arm, the Devil Bringer to magically reload as he fires as unlike Dante's guns, Blue Rose carries a limited number of bullets.

The two remain in place firing persistently at eachother to a stalemate, each shot intercepting the other's shot when suddenly a vintage red car slams into Ray from behind and rams him into a brick wall nearby.

* * *

Character Change - Dante

* * *

Dante sighs and gets out of the car, drawing Rebellion and saying "I would have figured you'd put this punk in his place by now kid.". Nero scoffs and replies "He's good Dante, almost as good as you."

"Thanks for the compliment." are the words coming from Ray, who should be dead from the 130 Miles-Per-Hour collision from behind. Ray flickers out of sight to appear in front of Nero, sending a forward kick his way which in turn sends Nero back 10 feet as Dante shakes his head slightly and says "Come on kid! You can do better then that." Ray turns to face Dante and eyes his sword, saying "Damnit, why the hell did you just bring all the pieces in one place?" Dante takes a look at his Rebellion for a second and says "Huh, good point. So I guess you're just toying with Nero if you're not interested in the gate." Ray was about to speak when Nero sent a Streak at Ray who darted to the side to avoid the slash in a manner mirroring Dante's Trickster Style. Nero then said "Not bad, but how about telling me why you're attacking me in the first place?" Ray then speaks, saying "Well as I was about to tell the Son of Sparda here, I'm not intent on opening the gate those blades act as keys to, I intend on destroying it." Nero replies "Then why attack me?" Ray sighs and says "To destroy the gate I need Yamato, the Spear of Destiny, Rebellion or Octavius." Dante then says "Octavius? That's a new one." Ray then says "I assume you're here because of the raid on the Vatican, her name is Laura Kylani and I know her personally. She's not evil, I rather believe some kind of spell or curse may be driving her to do what she's doing." Dante scratches his head and says "Nothing's ever simple is it? Well I can obviously tell you're not going to fight the gal but I am a bit curious on how you know her, given the fact that you're likely not human." Ray shakes his head and says "I'm human and so is she. Like you she is half-demon and half-human, though her mother died millennia ago and my story is that she saved my life from a fatal injury by infusing part of her energy into me, a process similar to what would cause that arm to change with the rookie."

Nero took a glance at his arm before looking back at Ray whilst Dante says "Are you sure you're not letting that fact cloud your judgement? If she saved your life wouldn't you feel indebted to her?" Ray shook his head "I saved her life constantly for 12 years of my life until those devil-worshipping bastards awakened her demon form. All those years I believed they were trying to sacrifice her life and I fought, and I killed. I know you have a history of mercenary work but at the least you never fired a gun at someone's head at only 10 years old. If we're talking about debt she would owe me, but I didn't keep protecting her for selfish reasons, I was protecting her because she was my closest friend, that I cared about her safety and it went to the point that we had to remain in the shadows for a long period, my parents would most likely not recognize me by now after 12 years of absence. If anything, I'm angry at Laura's demonic father and my discernment is what keeps me from going with her plan just to kill the fiend."

Dante let Ray vent his anger and sighed after he finished, saying "I see, well it won't be a good story if you don't save the damsel-in-distress so I'll help you out, if you know where this gate is, we can head there and end this."

* * *

Character Change - Ray Zenji

* * *

Ray relaxed after hearing Dante's words, he expected the seasoned Devil Hunter to be uncooperative. Ray's relaxation however got the better of him as a blast of energy hit the ground between the three, sending them in various directions, with Dante flying back into his car, breaking the center rearview mirror.

Ray quickly recovered along with Dante and looked up in the direction of the blast and saw Laura, with black feathered wings keeping her Airborne. A sword in a sheath rested on her left hipside, the blade her father once wielded, Octavius and in her hands was the spear of destiny, the speartip being made of some red crystal and the back of the spear had a skull shaped pattern with red jewels in the eye sockets, the speartip had steam emitting from it, indicating it was a ranged weapon as well as a melee weapon.

Dante quickly unleashed Ebony &amp; Ivory which Laura twirled her spear in a circular motion, deflecting the bullets easily as Nero began to flank her only for Ray to flicker behind him, grab his head by the hair and slam him full force into the ground before pulling out a crossbow and proceeding to where Nero was heading.

Nero got up and shouted "What the hell?" as Ray fired a crossbow bolt at Laura who flapped her wings hard, moving the bolt into Nero's leg. Nero immediately fell unconscious, the bolt coated in a powerful sedative strong enough to knock out a demon. Dante continued his barrage as Laura then dashed faster than he could react and fired a blast from the spear, Dante quickly activated a Royal Guard stance only for the blast to break through it, fully charging his release in the process but still blasting through what should have been a Royal Block.

Ray quickly dashed towards a building and shapeshifted his katana back into a longsword form which he made a mental statement to bring about. "Hunter Form." was what went through his mind as the blade shifted back into Hunter, the design similar to Rebellion but the blade slightly thinner with a smaller grip and hilt, the length of the blade however remained the same and a skull pattern similar to Rebellion existed on one side of it's hilt, also in a formation like Rebellion.

Ray dashed up the wall and made it to the roof where Laura was close enough to make out his face. She gasped momentarily before saying "Why are you here? You should have gone back home." Ray replied "My home is wherever you are. Stop this madness, are you doing this of your own will or is something binding you to do this?" Laura didn't reply and merely closed her eyes as a lone tear made itself known as she twirled 360 degrees, intending to use the back end of her spear to trip Ray who backflipped to evade the swipe and said "Answer me! I deserve at least a reason as to why you're going this far."

Laura dashed forward and landed on the building to avoid a short barrage from Dante and then said to Ray "This is my destiny. Memories that were locked away came back after the ritual. I have to do this, the very reason I exist was as a means to undo the seal. When my father learned I existed he infused the energies needed to control Octavius in me so that I would be able to seek out the keys and free him." Ray shook his head and said "Your destiny? I don't believe in things like that. You make your own choices Laura, and right now your choices are to either go down this path which will lead to us fighting, or to help me destroy the gate completely."

Laura closed her eyes momentarily and absorbed the spear into her right hand and then drew Octavius, a longsword with two open spaces in the sword's center which made it look like a rail with a sharp end, the blade itself was double edged like Hunter and Rebellion. Ray sighed and took a defensive stance as Laura suddenly backflipped off the edge of the building and flew fast into the sky before disappearing from sight.

Ray said nothing as he placed the sword on his back and jumped down from the roof to land safely on the ground by Dante who had just placed the tranquilized Nero in the passenger seat of his car. Dante turned his head towards Ray and said "She's not attacking us now, think you got through to her?" Ray shook his head and said "No, she retreated because she was outnumbered and outmatched. Next time she'll try to strike while you're alone. I know where the gate is though, once the rookie wakes up we should make our journey there and end this."

Dante replied "And that means taking out the gate, even if it means taking out your friend also?" Ray shook his head and said "No, we'll strike down the gate and disable, not kill Laura. If we can't convince her with words then we'll have to do it with actions."

Dante gave a slight nod as he got in the driver's seat and with his hand, gave a gesture for Ray to sit in a rear passenger seat. As Ray noticed the front of the car wasn't as damaged as it should be he assumed it was modified for harsh actions. Dante said before starting the engine "First we take sleeping beauty home so his girlfriend won't be worried sick about him taking off without a word, then we can make out a plan. I think I'm going to enjoy the party that's about to happen."

Ray didn't reply as Dante backed out of the building and drove in the direction of a residential district in Fortuna, having gotten the address by reading Nero's driver's license which in Fortuna, listed their residential addresses as well.

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

**Some things I'm going to explain here in an afterword, just ignore it if you've either read it already, are uninterested in it and will find out in later chapters.**

**T****o define Dante's Royal Block, when in a defensive stance or executing a Royal Block (Basically executing the defensive move at the same time the attack lands) builds up energy based on the damage dealt to the shield. Some attacks can break through a normal block though I am unsure if they can breach a Royal Block in the games as I rarely get a Royal Block. In short, it defines the power that the Spear of Destiny has, able to tear through the defensive barrier which absorbs enough force to be fully charged for a release or royal release which are moves that have Dante send his palm forward with all the built up energy detonating in his target's face at point blank range, the more energy built up, the stronger the release attack is.**

**A royal release is a counterattack executed like a Royal Block, done immediately after being hit or after executing a royal block, causing multiplied damage that would be higher than a normal release in damage which is also based on how much energy is stored in the Release Gauge in the games.**

**Ray's devil arm has four forms, he can only access three at the moment, so far Hunter and Predator (The Latter being his weapon's Katana form) have been openly revealed. A third form (Known as Reaper) is a scythe weapon which can be controlled via telekinesis by the wielder of the weapon for ranged attacks as well as an attachable chain for reclaiming the weapon if it is knocked out of his hands or left impaled in an opponent. The Fourth is a larger and more heavy version of Hunter which is called Bloodlust and is his strongest form of the Devil Arm, but can only be activated via a Devil Trigger.**

**The mentioned was not a spoiler as it doesn't reveal story, Ray's combat techniques here rely more on defensive actions and counter attacks and if put in a game I would say they would be a mix of the Royal Guard and Trickster styles Dante uses and instead of procuring more Devil Arms, he would cycle through weapon forms on his Primary Devil Arm. His Secondary is a customized Desert Eagle outfitted for rapid fire and the same demonic modifications Ebony &amp; Ivory possess. Though he only uses one firearm like Nero he has experience with all forms of Small Arms and Modern Infantry Weapons such as Assault Rifles, Machineguns and Rocket Launchers though goes about them with an On-Site-Procurement strategy with the exception of his sidearm which bears the name White Eagle. In addition there are abilities Ray can access even whilst unarmed which will be revealed later in the story.**

**Chapters after this and other afterwords etc. etc. will assume you have read this and will use names and descriptions only in first revelations in the story (Such as Reaper and Bloodlust which have yet to formally appear in this story).**

**Though the story will focus on the OC Ray Zenji's POV often Dante and Nero will have parts alongside and I consider all three of them to be the Main Protagonists.**

**Till next time..**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being a separate, non-canon timeline regardless of what anyone else says, unless they make it up with a true DMC5 that ends up with the real Dante kicking the "New" Dante's ass)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 3 - Arrival

* * *

Fortuna, - Character Change - Ray Zenji

* * *

Ray waited just outside the door to avoid the conversation, having explained the mission to Dante whilst Nero was asleep so he could explain the situation to Nero's Fiancé.

After about an hour Dante and Nero walked out the door and quickly got in Dante's vehicle as Ray sighed and got in the back, saying "How did it go?".

Nero replied "She understood, this isn't the first time something powerful enough to destroy the world started causing trouble." Dante gave off a slight grin as Ray replied "I'm well aware of the Castle Fortuna incident. We're not going to be able to drive to Tibet from Fortuna."

Dante sighed and said "I'm well aware of that and believe it or not I actually have a plane that can get us there, I just need the location."

* * *

Order of Kylanos Monastery, Tibet. 4:38 PM

* * *

After a bit of a flight in a old and worn down yet flyable seaplane and a rather long climb up a mountain, the three stood near the entrance of a moderately sized Monastery which lacked the usual demonic architecture Dante was familiar with.

To Ray, this was the same place the cult had changed his friend and the same place he himself was changed by his friend. Dante broke the silence, saying "You sure this is the place kid?" Ray nodded and said "Inside the place is a massive underground complex, according to the legends this cult built itself on, a Hellgate lies at the bottom of the place and is primarily protected by three guardians who won't take too kindly to relations of Sparda or human trespassers who don't worship Kylanos."

The three quickly made their way in as a blizzard began to make itself known. That the interior was seemingly still well maintained being the first thing Ray noticed as well as several bullet holes that should be there, were not there. Ray then said "Keep on guard, this place is in better shape than I left it, someone has been maintaining it." Nero replied "More like something, take a look at this."

Ray and Dante turned their heads in Nero's direction where there were three tunnels, in each one, stone soldiers giving off a demonic aura stood in formation and drew their blades. Ray then said "Each one of these tunnels is new, Laura must have already opened two of the four locks, with Octavius and the Spear of Destiny respectively. According to legend each one leads to a specific Guardian's chamber, all three must be defeated or convinced of loyalty or the lower floors won't be accessible." Dante nodded, immediately drawing rebellion and charging through the center tunnel as Nero sighed and took the right tunnel, drawing and firing blue rose with his demon hand and holding tight onto Red Queen with his human hand.

Ray sighed as he was expecting them to charge into the fight without a plan. Drawing Hunter from his back he made a mental command play out "Predator Form" and his longsword devil arm reshaped into a Katana.

Charging energy into the blade he held the blade in a reverse hold and once the blade glowed with a demonic purple color he slashed once in the direction of the stone army ahead of him, slicing all of them in half from a distance. Though not as widespread as Yamato, it was more precise.

* * *

Proceeding further into the tunnel Ray entered a chamber which appeared to be some kind of demonic school classroom and he instinctively parried several crystal arrows from two Enigmas, multi-legged stone demon statues with deadly crystal longbows in which to snipe targets at a distance.

Ray flickered just above one of the Enigmas and caused a pulse of energy to send himself and his blade fast into the ground, slicing the statue in half with one blow before turning to face the other statue and sent a five part slash combo which quickly reduced the other to pieces just as more stone soldiers appeared along with another pair of Enigmas. Ray grinned and gave a mental command "Reaper Form" and his Katana shapeshifted into a demonic scythe as he locked a chain into a slot on the lower end of the staff, the chain protruding straight from Ray's left arm which was now similar to Nero's arm, demonic in appearance and form, the chain made of a black metal infused with demonic energy as Ray quickly unleashed a torrent of slashes from the scythe, overwhelming several stone soldiers and impaling an Enigma in the eye before flickering 10 feet back and pulling the chain which in the process sliced the enigma in half as Ray shapeshifted the weapon back into Hunter form and drew his sidearm, White Eagle and sent a charged barrage into the other enigma, destroying it quickly and then sending a move mirroring Dante's stinger attack, a move which magically accelerates the user and his sword into an opponent, literally becoming a human missile.

Shattering a Stone Soldier with a stinger Ray quickly holstered his sidearm and sent a three way attack against three Stone Soldiers, hitting one, shifting position to hit another and finally sending a third hit against the third soldier. With each Stone Soldier stunted back and stunned slightly Ray drew White Eagle again and quickly destroyed the victims with one shot to the head each.

* * *

Character Change - Nero

* * *

Nero had entered an organic looking room which reminded him of the inside of the Savior, the very memory made him cringe as several lizard demons appeared before him, Assaults, a lesser-demon form he enjoyed slaying since the Fortuna Incident. Nero quickly jumped over one and drove Red Queen into it's head and revved up a mechanism on the blade's grip which sounded similar to a motor cycle revving up, Red Queen's infamous Exceed Fuel Injector System, and he had enough fuel to party all week.

Quickly sending a now burning blade out of his recent victim and into two others in a charged streak he quickly maintained the rotation, slicing through the remaining assaults except for one which brought up it's shield in time only for it to shatter as Nero's Ex-Streak finished, Nero simply sent his Devil Bringer at the lizard and grabbed it, slamming it across the area before sending it straight into the ground at high speed, killing the fiend rather easily.

Expecting more assaults instead a Blitz appeared, a demon charged with lightning which made swordsplay useless unless it overshot it's powers and left itself vulnerable, assuming you could survive it's constant attacks. Nero's only advantage here was Blue Rose and the fact that these demons were blind, literally.

Evading the lightning attacks, sometimes barely, Nero continued to barrage it with Blue Rose until the demon overexerted itself, leaving it's body vulnerable and no longer charged with electricity. Nero charged up the Exceed once more and got close, sending Red Queen up in a three revolution spin strike which sent the Blitz into the air with him, followed by a three slash mid-air combo and finally a downward thrust to send both Devil Hunter and Devil into the ground.

The Creature became angry and Nero rolled back away as it erupted in Red Lightning and became even more furious in it's attacks and movements, being difficult to keep aim on even with Blue Rose. After evading several attacks and attempts to grab him, the creature self destructed in a futile attempt to take Nero to hell with it.

Nero brushed off his blue trenchcoat and holstered Blue Rose, sighing and proceeding towards an opening nearby.

* * *

Character Change - Dante

* * *

Dante had made short work of the Stone Soldiers in the tunnel and entered a room which seemed to be some kind of well designed bedroom with three beds, one with yellow covers, one with purple and a queen size bed with red covers. Dante then noticed a somewhat nostalgic sight, Hell Prides.

Surrounded by several Hell prides in all directions Dante chuckled as he sent a five way combo which involved revolving swings with Rebellion which acted as crowd control, sending back the surrounding prides and turning three in front of him into sand, a sign that the scythe wielding demons were slain.

Dante relied on his trickster style here, dashing whenever a scythe was about to be swung at him and sending a three way combo or a stinger into the lesser demon. Before long the room was clear and a Hell Vanguard appeared to challenge the seasoned Devil Hunter who sent a stinger at the same time the Vanguard sent it's scythe, causing the blades to interact and bounce back slightly. The Vanguard wasted no time in sending another attack only for the same result and it's third was met with Dante dashing to the side and quickly switching to his swordmaster style mid-fight, jumped mid-air and performed a four way mid-air combo with rebellion he appropriately called Aerial Rave.

As Dante landed the Vanguard vanished and the ground beneath Dante's feet began to ripple like water to which he rolled to the side to avoid the Vanguard leaping out of the ground only for it to disappear again. Dante then suddenly sent a stinger at empty air, only for the Vanguard to appear, about to slash forward at Dante only to be met by Rebellion's thrust and the Hell Vanguard was knocked back as Dante drew Ebony and Ivory and unleashed a hailstorm of bullets on the Vanguard's had, causing white mist to leak out like blood before the Vanguard itself dissipated in a dying scream.

Dante holstered his pistols as a door opened to show the way ahead, saying as he walks forward "I hope this Guardian gives me more fun than these guys."

* * *

Character Change - Ray Zenji

* * *

As Ray walked into the next room he noticed a sight new to him, several tiger like demons with a bladed tail and a much larger tiger which has white armoring and three bladed tails. The creature speaks in English to Ray, saying "I sense in you a power similar to the chosen one, yet you slay Kylanos' loyal subjects, explain yourself!"

Ray sighs and says "I don't have time for this." and with that he quickly draws White Eagle and guns down one of the Assault Tigers as he now calls them, causing the larger demon to roar in anger and shout "Fool, I am the Guardian of Flame, you will meet an early grave here for your betrayal." Ray ignores the words and dashes at one of the tigers, sending a four way combo with Hunter as two more tigers approach from behind, causing Ray to roll out of the strikes of their tails which thrust as fast as bullets. Ray backflips for distance and skirmishes the tigers with White Eagle, sending round after round as if his gun has no limit to it's ammo and in rapid fire. Ray holsters his pistol and shifts his blade into Predator form and dashes forward with a piercing thrust which causes torrents of energy to slice the target Assault Tiger in half, he then quickly ducks to avoid another's claw strikes and sends a strong, firm slash which cuts it in half from the waist. Ray then flickers in front view of the Guardian of Flame and sends a two part mid-air slash combo before landing on the ground and shifting his blade back to Hunter and sending his sword back in a move mirroring Dante's High Time attack, using the momentum to launch himself into the air as well to avoid a slash from the Guardian's claws and whilst in mid air, parries an attack from it's three tails.

Ray lands and dashes back three times and shifts his blade into Predator form and sends three slashes forward, generating ranged energy arcs which slash at the guardian, one slash cuts off a spear-tail and thus leaves the Guardian with two long ranged weapons which it sends forward to impale Ray only for him to evade one and parry the other whilst also grabbing it as the tail receeds back, pulling Ray close in for a three way aerial combo which cuts off the remaining tails, causing the Guardian to roar in pain.

The smaller Assault Tigers dash at Ray, one tackles him into the other side of the room only to be blasted back by a barrage from White Eagle. Ray recovers his stance and shifts Predator into Hunter and either evades or parries the oncoming attacks from the Assault Tigers as he notices the guardian is regenerating it's tails, having replaced one already. Ray charges energy into Hunter and sends an attack mirroring Dante's driver move, sending a shockwave which slices off the regenerated tail of the guardian as Ray flickers on top of the Guardian's head, sending his sword into it's skull and charging substantial demonic energy into his blade which shifts both of his arms into a red/black demonic form similar to Dante's devil trigger which causes a shockwave inside the Guardian's head, making it explode.

With the Guardian dead the other tigers also explode, seemingly linked to the Guardian to the point of dying if it died.

The energies of the Guardian suddenly erupt and slam into Ray's arms, transferring the demon's power into him, increasing his strength tremendously.

Ray recovers from the ordeal and walks slowly up to a nearby gate and, charging energy into his right arm, causing it to partially devil-trigger, he punches the gate with enough force to shatter it like glass, revealing a path further down.

* * *

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being an alternate reality)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 4 - The Guardians and Impersonators.

* * *

Character : Dante

* * *

Dante walked into a room which had a small pond in the center of it and a cement flooring around the pond. Quickly several puppets who had blades for arms, some had sawed off shotguns similar to Dante's own second-favorite firearm (He considered Ebony &amp; Ivory one firearm with two bodies). He had faced these demons before when he met Trish and sealed Mundus, they were easy to defeat with gunplay though sometimes could parry a blade's attack.

From the water rose a blue skinned woman dressed in a demonic armor. She took a glance at Dante who fired back a look that was both a threat and a flirt, taunting the "Guardian"

The woman spoke, saying "I am the guardian of water and you are the Son of Sparda. Unlike the others I don't necessarily believe the sins of the father carry on to the son but even as we guardians remain here, the worl-" Dante yawns loudly, interrupting her and then says "Boring! How about I introduce myself and lay terms here instead. My name is Dante, If you're gonna help me slice your master to pieces then go ahead but if you're just going to sit there and talk all day I'll just go on ahead with my original plan."

The Guardian replied "An expected response, you side with your human half and disregard the fact that you are also a demon. But it is not I that you will be fighting Son of Sparda, I have drafted a suitable opponent for you."

With those words she conjures up a spell, the puppet demons go into the back as a familiar sight makes itself known to Dante. His doppleganger that attacked him just after the Fortuna Incident right in front of his shop but this was different slightly, his doppleganger was confused.

Dante decided to refer to him as Dino for some reason and then said "Is this the best you got? Because I've already killed this guy before." Dino ignored the man who looked liked a silver-haired twin of himself though obviously he wasn't Vergil, sporting a blade which made him slightly jealous as it was larger and more well designed than his own Rebellion. Turning around he noticed several blue strings puppet about him, taking over his body, he attempted to unleash a Devil Trigger to no avail.

He spoke, saying "What the hell? Why the f**k am I here?" The woman spoke, saying "I have pulled you from your dimension to this one. Here you shall fight this world's version of yourself. Dante will have his hands full indeed as his opponent has both the blood of demons and angels within him. I wonder how the two shall fare?"

Dante replied "Didn't I just tell you I killed this guy before?" Dino replied as his body forcibly drew his version of Rebellion and faced Dante, saying "Never seen you in my life. Looks like this demon bitch is going to make us fight." Dante replied "Fine, but I'm calling you Dino." Dino felt agitated at this and replied "Know what, f**k you, just stop puppeting me so I can fight him at full." The Guardian replied "As you wish Nephilim." and released her control, Dino then destroyed the puppets around him with charged shots from his versions of Ebony &amp; Ivory which ricocheted off each hit and took them down, leaving only the Guardian who sank into the water and resumed her puppeting of him, saying "An interesting trick, one that I shall not fall for again"

Dante drew and pointed Rebellion at Dino and said "Well this is getting to be an interesting party so how about some music." with those words Dante drew Ebony &amp; Ivory and unleashed a hailstorm of bullets as Dino dashed out of the way in a move looking like some kind of angelic version of trickster's three-dash and sent a stinger only for Dante to quickly switch to Royal Guard and execute a Royal Block and whilst grinning sent his still fully charged release (From when he got hit by the Spear of Destiny). The energy had charged so high from the SoD (Spear of Destiny) that a red instead of a white pulse emitted from Dante's hand, sending Dino across and into the wall behind him though the move also burned off the skin of Dante's hand which began to regenerate as he was a half-devil as well as human.

Dino recovered and smiled as he said "Well at least I'll enjoy this show a bit, let's get this on!" and with those words said his hair turned white and his black coat shifted red and Dante felt a jump upwards forcing him into the air and slowing him down only for him to snap his fingers and use the Quicksilver ability to counter the time dilation caused by his doppleganger's devil trigger as the two charged at eachother with a stinger each, both attacks cancelling eachother out as Dante smiled and said "Well if you're half angel like that demoness claimed them I'll show you my devil side!"

Dante entered a devil trigger state and his demonic form resembled his father, Sparda's form as he moved to headbutt Dino and unleashed a multi-combo assault whilst in Swordsmaster, Dante having become skilled enough to use Quicksilver as an ability instead of a style which let him combine it with any style such as Swordsmaster or Quicksilver.

Continuing his Dance Macabre move he did a real number on Dino before using a baseball-bat like swing with Rebellion as it was charged with red demonic lightning, sending Dino into the ceiling. Dino shifted Rebellion into a large demonic battleaxe weapon and used his powers to accelerate a downward motion as Dante rolled back and switched to Royal Guard as he then withstood the following tremor that accompanied Dino's move.

Dino drew a single-barreled shotgun called Revenant and fired a blast only for Dante to draw his own double-barreled saw-off and intercept the attack with it. Dino shifted his weapon to an angelic looking scythe known as Osiris and unleashed a flurry of attacks which Dante either blocked in Royal Guard stance or rolled to evade, toying with his opponent and at the same time feeling his blood boiling in excitement as perhaps he was fighting someone with Angel blood in him. Dante assumed Demons and Angels fight eachother because they are bound naturally to hate eachother. Both Dantes were some distance from eachother, their Devil Triggers having ran out of magic to fuel them and they both unleashed an Overdrive, each of the energy waves cancelled eachother out though Dante quickly Air-Tricked above Dino and used a straight-down slice with Rebellion called Helm Breaker which Dino rolled back to avoid, barely escaping being sliced in half.

Dante decided he was done toying with this joke and said "Well time to send your wannabe-punk ass back where it came from!" Dino smirked and replied "Cute." and both charged at eachother, slashing with their blades in a flurry as each parried the other's attacks until Dante grinned as Dino was impaled from behind by an exact duplicate of Dante. Doppleganger smirked as he kicked Dino off his sword and both Dante and his shadow demon friend unleashed their respective Ebony &amp; Ivories at Dino, charged with magical energy which broke the bond, albeit also severely injuring Dino before as the bond shattered, he faded out of existence, presumably back to wherever the Guardian fished him from.

The Guardian summoned more puppet demons and rose from the water, also summoning several demons of unknown nature, presumably from Dino's world as they radiated the same aura he did, minus the angelic aura that also accompanied him. Dante decided to call these Demons Styx.

Dante recalled Doppleganger and shifted into gunslinger and began to skirmish the Puppets whilst using Rebellion to strike at the Styxes attacking him. Dante quickly used Twosome time, a tactic involving him using Ebony &amp; Ivory in an Akimbo tactic, using one gun to hit a demon and the other to hit a different one, keeping two demons at bay with his trademark pistols until only three styxes remained to kill. Dante switched to swordmaster and executed a stinger at one of the styxes and a second near him was torn to shreds by a Dance Macabre involving Dante deciding to go old school this time as instead of finishing with a powerful upper slash he jammed rebellion into the ground and spun himself around whilst holding the handle, sending his feet into the Demon repetitively at 35 miles per hour.

With the Styx killed old-school Dante switched to Trickster and dashed to evade the third styx's attack and then air tricked above and sliced it in half with a helm breaker and then returned to gunslinger as the final Styx who recovered from the Stinger now charged at him only for Dante to roll back and then unleash Ebony &amp; Ivory to their full potential, charging them with pure demonic energy and literally turning the Styx to ashes from the highly charged .45 ACP magically generated rounds.

Dante turned to look at the Guardian who screeched in a deafening tone which caused Dante to rub his ears as if clearing out ear wax. The Guardian formed a blue defensive sphere around her and formed a red demonic blade which begun to spin as if preparing to be launched at Dante like a missile.

Dante simply stood there tapping his foot as the sword was launched and just before it hit he suddenly executed a Royal Block, having shifted into Royal Guard at the last second. His tactic ricocheted the sword back at the armored witch guardian which destroyed both her shield and the summoned sword. Dante then switched to trickster and closed the distance with two dashes followed by a three-way slash combo with Rebellion though he held back on the third slash so as to not send her flying back, instead using a High Time upper-slash attack to send her airborne and Dante used the momentum along with his demonic energies to follow her into the sky to abuse her with an Aerial Rave and finished her with a Helm Breaker, sending her to the ground in two pieces.

Dead, the Guardian's energies flowed into Dante as her body turned into energy and Dante was given a new Devil Arm, a scythe much like the one Dino used only it had a demonic nature and was a bit heavy though Dante quickly got accustomed to it as he tested it out, slashing the air around him rapidly and realized that it left a trail of demonic energy which would likely poison any victims caught in the wake except for the wielder, meaning Dante would not have to worry about injuring himself with this weapon. Grinning he rested it on his back and then got close to the sealed door and then unleashed his new weapon on the door, slicing it to pieces easily as he proceeded down towards a larger main room.

* * *

Character Change: Nero

* * *

Nero entered his Guardian's chamber and was shocked to see a simple room. Immediately his opponent appeared a man whose face looked like Dante's but he was wearing different attire. Nero then said "So are you gonna suddenly help me out or am I going to have to kick your ass?"

The Guardian replied "Flippant and Open, just like my brother. I know not how I was trapped here but I am sadly forced to obey the commands of this place. I am Vergil, a Son of Sparda and oddly the powers radiating within you are similar to my own, only they lack an angel's touch as well as the demon's touch."

Nero rubbed his chin with his demonic arm and said "Well you don't look like Dante's brother, he gave me a detailed description-" Nero felt his arm burn as it began to change his form to the shock of the self-proclaimed Vergil in front of him. Now facing the Nephilim Vergil was the true Vergil.

* * *

Character Change : Vergil

* * *

Vergil fixed his hair into his grilled back style and accessed Yamato and said "It seems I am bound to Nero but regardless in your presence I am able to manifest my true form. Defeating you and taking your energies will allow him to summon my power to it's fullest. I cannot yet act of my own accord entirely though right now, I can deal with you." Vergil's Nephilim doppleganger replied "Interesting, but I've already defeated an alternate version of myself beforehand to reclaim my amulet. I will have no trouble dealing with you as well." Vergil replied "Do not assume victory so quickly, I am also now empowered with the boy's own unique abilities as well as my own. I can fare against a Nephilim such as yourself. Draw your blade, only one of us will survive this encounter."

His doppleganger had no disagreements as he silently drew his version of Yamato whilst Vergil kept his Yamato sheathed but in hand.

The Nephilim charged at Vergil with a single forward dash mirroring Dante's trickster and attempted to use a three-way slash with his Yamato only for Vergil to parry the attack and air trick above his doppleganger and summoned Red Queen for a downward thrust attack which sent the Nephilim back a bit. Red Queen faded from sight and form and Vergil formed several summoned swords which began to speed at his doppleganger who either dashed to evade them or used his own summoned swords to intercept Vergil's.

Vergil sheathed his blade and his doppleganger as well. As his doppleganger was about to draw his blade to use his version of a Judgement cut he suddenly was enveloped in one, the true Vergil able to execute the move so rapidly that it seemed he never drew his blade to begin with, instantly unsheathing and sheathing Yamato at hypersonic speeds. The two dashed across the field, striking eachother and parrying eachothers attacks as the two seemed equally matched until Vergil activated his Devil Trigger and began to move much faster than the Nephilim who responded by creating a shadow doppleganger of his own to try and overwhelm Vergil to no avail as he was too fast for the Nephilim while in his devil trigger form. Using a summoned sword as a melee weapon Vergil executed a massive combo against the Nephilim as if he were armed with Force Edge once more and then flickered out of sight only to slam from above with a Helm Breaker and rapidly repeated the move three times, overwhelming the Nephilim who was barely able to survive the onslaught as Vergil then disappeared and spheres of slashes appeared all over the area, an onslaught of judgement cuts that the Nephilim could not avoid or survive as he was hit by several and left in a stunned state as Vergil appeared behind him outside his devil trigger form and quickly impaled his doppleganger who no longer had his demon shadow clone active due to the exhaustion of his magical energy followed by the reverse impale move Vergil pulled off, facing away from his opponent whilst driving Yamato through his heart from behind.

The Nephilim fell dead and his energies began to flow through Vergil/Nero.

* * *

Character Change : Nero

* * *

Vergil's energies had been exhausted in the fight as his form returned to Nero who grabbed his head with his human hand and said "Ugh, that was new, Dante's not gonna believe this."

Nero walked up to the sealed door and with Yamato which seemed to radiate a powerful energy that both was it's usual demonic aura but now had seemingly been infused with the Nephilim's Angelic powers as well, Nero though not in control had been aware of his senses during the fight and knew fully what had happened, he also knew that he could, once in his devil trigger state, focus the energies to call upon Vergil who would as long as the DT Energy remained available, would fight Nero's battles for him.

With Yamato Nero used a Judgement Cut to destroy the sealed door and proceeded into a large and open room, having defeated his opponent seemingly at the same time as Dante and Ray had as the three walked from the doors at the same time.

* * *

Character Change : Ray Zenji

* * *

Ray noticed the other two demon hunters had completed their trials at the same time he did despite lacking any plan when they rushed in. He could feel a change in each of them as Dante likely acquired a new Devil Arm and Nero displayed an aura which felt as if he was now both Demon and Angel in addition to also being human. Dante took notice of Nero's change as well and said "I take it you got a present from your Guardian as well?" Nero nodded and said "Yeah, looks like your brother somehow sealed half of his soul within my arm and now I can call on him for help when I'm in a devil trigger state." Dante seemed both unnerved and slightly relieved at this revelation and said "Well just be careful, my brother wasn't exactly a good role model." Nero chuckled and replied "I'll be fine, after all it's his powers that run through me so I should be able to be his equal." Ray scoffed and said "No offense Nero but you're anything but Vergil's equal. At best you're an ant compared to him." Nero was about to reply but the trio was interrupted by a sudden presence making itself known.

Three fights, one for each devil hunter appeared. For Dante several Abyssal Demons made themselves known, these demons were capable as they wielded fire charged scythes in battle and were not to be underestimated. Whilst not exactly a major demon they were still able to give him a good workout and the fact that 300 were facing him was going to make things fun.

For Nero there was a variety of puppet like demons facing him which to Dante were the Marionettes he had faced before including several Bloody Maries as well as several Assaults supporting them, three blue scaled tiger like demons with spiked tails appeared and he decided to call them Assault Tigers, a name Ray coincidentally had also coined for them.

Ray did not like who stood in front of him. He was going to have to fight his childhood friend Laura Kylani as she appeared no longer in her black denim jacket but now in a pitch black armor that had some red trims. Her black feathered wings were known and her eyes were a demonic red, in her hand was Octavius and resting on her lower back was the spear of destiny, retracted slightly to conserve space.

Dante and Nero charged at the demon hordes facing them whilst Laura began to walk towards Ray who remained in place until Laura stopped just 10 feet from him.

Ray said "I don't want to fight you Laura, please stop this madness so we can just go home and live in peace." Laura shook her head and said "I can't, I'm sorry. You do deserve the answer so I'll tell you. I am doing this of my own will. I'm not huma-" Ray interrupted with a loud voice, shouting "Bullshit! You're the most human person I've ever known in my life! Don't ever think of yourself differently!" Laura sighed and replied "I'm sorry. I would thank you though for bringing the other keys but honestly it was a stupid decision on your part. You've never been one to act so brash." Ray replied "I brought those two here because Nero possesses enough potential, he just needs to break it out and seeing him fight, it seems he has done just that. Dante has surpassed his father Sparda, the one who sealed Kylanos here to begin with which means this time we might be able to kill him instead of simply sealing him." Laura then says "How exactly am I supposed to just stand by while you attempt to kill my father?" Ray replied "I did some research after you left. He's only using you Laura, once he's done with you there will be no more value than just another subject to be sent to war. If you succeed here Laura, you'll become nothing more than just another expendable soldier to him. He doesn't see you as a daughter. He's the demon, not you."

Laura takes a fighting stance and says "He's too powerful Ray, sooner or later he will escape because the seal was weakening to begin with. It's better that I release him sooner so that he has a debt to me. Raymond, all I want is for you to be safe, you've spent 12 years saving my life, it's my turn to save your life now, just let me do this." Ray grabs and draws Hunter whilst saying "Laura you should know better that the first rule of dealing with the devil is, don't."

Laura dashes at Ray with Octavius and sends a single slash which Ray easily parries and then executes a roundhouse kick which sends Laura back slightly, the two both holding back in their fight.

Ray closes the distance and sends a three-slash combo at Laura aiming to injure instead of kill though Laura evades the attacks and sheaths Octavius and brings out the Spear of Destiny which extends into it's combat form and fires a weak pulse of energy which only knocks Ray back slightly. Laura says "Don't make me fight seriously Raymond, I don't want to hurt you!" Ray replies "That's my line Laura, if you're so sure the seal will undo itself in time then join me and Dante, together we can take down Kylanos."

As Ray finishes those words a marionette demon (or rather pieces of it) fly past him as both he and Laura look in Nero's direction, instead there is Vergil and Dante, fighting side by side against the demon hordes, Nero having activated his new power to allow Vergil's soul to take over temporarily.

Laura takes advantage of Ray's distraction and retracts and holsters the SoD and grabs Hunter which also takes Ray's attention back to her only for it to be too late as she uses her strength to tear Ray's Devil Arm from his hand and hold it to his throat, saying "Give up Ray, without your Devil Arm you can't fight." Ray responds by ducking and attempting to leg sweep Laura who takes flight to evade the strike. Ray then draws his crossbow and loads a tranquilizer bolt and this time charges it with energy so it will be able to fly through a simple pressure wave and not accidentally incapacitate an ally or himself.

Using his evasive dashes to avoid Pressure Cuts (The ranged slash attack from Ray's Devil Arm Predator) as Laura had shifted his Hunter form into Predator form, the weapon was after-all born from the energies Laura infused into Ray which means the two resonated, which also gave Ray an idea. If this means Laura can use his devil arm and it's forms then he might be able to use Octavius. Some Devil Arms aren't picky about who can use them, the ones that are forcibly taken but others are linked to the demonic energies of the intended wielder meaning only they can use it. As Dante and Vergil are twins this is how both can use Yamato and furthermore Nero who is infused with Vergil's energies is what lets him use Yamato beyond just a simple sword. Force Edge was usable in general because Sparda has been dead for some time, allowing anyone to use Force Edge though only a Son of Sparda can use it to it's full potential.

Whilst evading his own weapon Ray fired several crossbow bolts, reloading it with his demonic powers and charging the bolts so they can break through an air current though Laura is aware of their charged nature and evades instead of attempting to deflect them, her high sense of smell also picks up the tranquilizer which is extremely potent. If a bolt so much as nicks her she'll lose consciousness quickly, to an ordinary human this dose of anesthetic would be fatal but Ray knew full from that ritual and this entire situation practically that Laura wouldn't die from this dosage. The fact that Nero who was only infused with demonic power like Ray, not actually being a demon-human hybrid by birth is why the tranquilizer didn't kill him back in Fortuna.

Laura flickered behind Ray and as Ray turned around with his crossbow Laura impaled him in the chest with his sword, now in Hunter form.

Tears ran down Laura's face as she said "I'm sorry, this won't kill you but it will at least incapacitate you long enough for me to do what I have to do." Ray fell as Laura released the grip of Hunter.

Vergil had returned to Nero's form as the Devil Trigger energy became too weak to sustain him and Nero took notice of what happened to Ray and drew Blue Rose and fired a pair of rounds which imbedded themselves in Laura's shoulder though this wasn't enough to stop her as she drew the Spear of Destiny and fired a full force burst between Nero and Dante, temporarily dazing the two which gave her just enough time to fly rapidly enough to steal Rebellion from Dante's back, her powers given to her by Kylanos enabling her to deny Dante's ability to recall the sword to his hand.

Laura escaped through a tunnel as Nero moved to assist Dante who suddenly dashed to his side to avoid a Marionette's shotgun blast which injured Nero in his left shoulder. Dante replied "Don't worry, I got a spare." Dante used his powers to summon Alastor, a sword much like rebellion but it's appearance was that of a bat like demon spitting out the blade. Lightning charged through the sword naturally and Dante quickly activated his Devil Trigger, his form being that of a blue demon charged with electricity and he then unleashed a torrent of attacks which cleared the surrounding demons, leaving only the three demon hunters in the room.

Nero then said "If you coulda done that before then why didn't you?" Dante replied "I guess I underestimated my enemy, this time." the thought unnerved Dante as he usually doesn't misjudge the skills of another. He had assumed Laura would be inexperienced based on Ray's explanation of what happened but she had either access to suppressed memories or perhaps was more accustomed to fighting as a demon than Ray had known himself. This underestimation had cost them Rebellion, which means all Laura needed now was Yamato. Ray was impaled by his own Sword and Dante summoned a green devil star and proceeded over to Ray only to see an explosion of purple demonic energy flowing from both Ray and Hunter which was impaled in his chest.

Ray shouted as his entire body took a demonic form temporarily before returning to normal, Hunter had undergone a physical change, it now looked more similar to Alastor with bat like wings from the sides of the hilt but it did not look like a demonic bat was spitting out the blade as the core design of the blade was unchanged, a skull design and a blade thinner than Alastor or Rebellion slightly. Ray pulled the sword out and now that he seemed to have new energy pondered as to why Laura would impale him with the sword, she knew well that when a demon, born or infused is impaled with their native devil arm it awakens their true powers. Ray decided to believe that Laura indeed wants him to have a chance of stopping her and defeating Kylanos.

Dante comes within earshot and says "So, need any help kid?" Ray replied "I'm fine. And don't call me kid." Ray rests hunter on his back and as Nero approaches he says "I thought you were more attentive than that Dante, you let her get Rebellion. All she needs now is Yamato and we'll have to clean up Sparda's mess without preparation." Nero replied "Not to sound pessimistic or anything but I'm not so sure the whole non-lethal approach is going to work with this girl. If we hold back she'll gain the advantage." Dante nods and says "I agree. As much as I want to help you with this Ray, Laura is too far gone. You have to accept the fact-"

Ray interrupts him, saying "I will never accept that as an option! Nero should understand how I feel about Laura. Suffice it to say I care about her more than as a friend. My crossbow is fitted with a heavy tranquilizer as Nero already knows. If I can get a good shot Laura will be incapacitated and there won't be a need to take lethal action." Nero replied "Oh because that thing worked so good last time! She sent the bolt at me and knocked me out when you interrupted my shot and she's made it obvious that she can dodge the damn bolts even if you charge them with energy."

Dante then says "Sorry kid but you're on your own with this non-lethal approach. It's pretty obvious she's not going down without a serious fight." Ray grinds his teeth and decides to flicker to the doorway Laura entered and says "Fine, if you're going to take that approach then we're no longer on the same side. I don't care how powerful you are Dante but I'm not letting you or the rookie kill Laura. The next time we meet, it will be with our swords and guns." After saying that he uses hunter to send a driver into the ceiling and runs forward, closing the main entrance and forcing Nero and Dante likely to use the other two tunnels away from the direction of the chambers of the guardians. It seems the place is designed to have three entrance chambers for each primary room and Ray had just sealed his chamber meaning Nero and Dante won't be able to follow him directly.

Dante then says "Well I guess we don't have a choice. I'll take the left, you take the right." Nero nodded and said "Be careful Dante, if he truly meant what he said then he wont give up. We may have to kill him." Dante has a slight frown on his face as he says "Hopefully it won't come to that. Still if we can take Laura down without killing her then we'll do that but at the same time if we have no other choice." Nero nods and the two part ways, heading for the opposite ended tunnels as there is no way they could cut through all that rubble in time to catch up to Ray in his tunnel.

* * *

Darting down the unprotected tunnel Ray stops momentarily and sits down by the wall to rest, it seems the momentary surge of energy was accompanied by what could be described as something close to a caffeine crash. Reaching into his jacket pocket he pulled out a photo of him and Laura when they were 15 and he stares at it. He not only has to deal with being forced to fight Laura but also now will have to face Dante and Nero and possibly Vergil as well as Nero has acquired the power to summon him for aid. Fighting both sons of sparda would be suicidal, if he has to fight them he may need to find a way to divide and conquer. As much as he mouths off He isn't an equal for Dante. For a brief moment he considers giving up and helping Laura with her insane quest to unleash Kylanos but quickly shoves away this thought, getting back up and putting the photo away as he rediscovers his resolve to save Laura from her manipulative demon father.

No matter what the cost he won't let her fall into darkness, even if it means he dies, at least the woman he loves will live. Continuing forward Ray keeps in mind that although his own death is a last resort, he will if necessary give his life to save hers.

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

**Afterword:**

**I've described several moves in this chapter such as Helm Breaker and even gave unique names to Ray's actions. Furthermore Dante will have access to unique Devil Arms and now currently has lost Rebellion and is relying on Alastor (His Primary Weapon aside from Force Edge in DMC1) as his primary weapon. Nero now has the ability to change into Vergil temporarily and Vergil not only has access to his own abilities but also can utilize his arms as Devil Bringers and can summon Red Queen as a secondary sword. He has also displayed the newfound ability to use summoned swords as melee weapons to take the place of his lack of having Force Edge. Both Vergil and Nero have stolen the DmC Vergil's Nephilim powers and thus are more powerful than ever. I had Dante face off against his doppleganger and tied this story in with the one-shot Devil May Cry:Justice that I made a while ago. Having now seen the Nephilim in battle on youtube followed by out of sheer boredom getting the game I found out that the gameplay and soundtrack is good but still the story and reboot versions are still blasphemy against the devil may cry series. Vergil only used a gun ONCE and that was when he and Dante banished Arkham back to the human world whilst Vergil in DmC has no problem with using and acquiring firearms (The True Vergil dislikes firearms because he doesn't see them as a true warrior's weapon which is why instead he uses summoned swords for ranged combat.) Dante's new Devil Arm is not a copy of Osiris, it will have different abilities and attributes though basic moves might be similar.**

**Some things incase you didn't know.**

**The Reason (Reinforced by DMC4 when Sanctus explains that to activate the savior Nero's Blood must be merged with Yamato just before impaling his Devil Bringer with the weapon) Dante awakened his devil trigger was because in DMC3 he was impaled by his own sword. Furthermore in DMC1 you gain access to Devil Trigger when Alastor impales him. He starts with DT in DMC2 and 4 because he already has awakened his abilities. This means that the same logic applies to Ray being impaled by his own Devil Arm (And also in the first chapter Laura being impaled by Octavius.)**

**Alastor is the primary Devil Arm you use throughout most of DMC1 (Excluding Force Edge which is used prior to Alastor and Sparda which is used after you defeat Nelo Angelo for the last time and normally you cannot enter Devil Trigger with either form of Force Edge, only using DT with Sparda during specific missions, I know, I've tested it as after you complete the game you restart from the beginning with all your devil arms and guns instead of having a mission select screen like in the sequels/prequels/reboot) and is imbued with lightning which allows Dante to act with lightning based abilities and having a lightning styled devil trigger form (With Rebellion he has a red DT form, with Sparda/Force Edge he has a black DT form though as I've explained here Dante has now progressed to the point where he can access his full potential without Sparda now.**

**The whole theory of Vergil being Nero's father isn't true canon-wise. Even though that one official from Capcom said it was, the rest of Capcom stated that wasn't the case (or rather didn't back him up) In my opinion it's more likely Nero was somehow infused with half of Vergil's Soul with the other half having been used by mundus to create Nelo Angelo and following DMC1 Vergil's soul was released by Dante and merged with the shattered Yamato which was then later in DMC4 repaired and fused with Nero, thus making Nero having both his own soul and Vergil's soul which is the basis of why he is now able to transform fully into Vergil.**

**DINO is an acronym for Dante-In-Name-Only. DINO's abilities here are from the reboot as now I have a better grasp on what they are. The DINO Dante encountered in Devil May Cry:Justice was a shadowed copy form and was not the true DINO but in this fight the Guardian of Water actually summoned DINO from an alternate reality to fight Dante. The reboot Vergil's aftermath of Vergil's Downfall I depicted here as instead of finding himself in his native universe he somehow was sent to the primary DMC verse and was trapped and forced to act as the third Guardian for Kylanos' seal. As Phineas explained "They wielded the power of both angels and demons but unlike them they could easily cross worlds. They were formidable!" I interpreted this as meaning the Nephilim could easily open gates to other universes along with other dimensions such as Limbo and the Demon World and thus when Vergil escaped he entered his 'verse's form of the demon world (and not technically limbo, but rather hell) and when he escaped he found himself trapped in the original DMC verse along with a cadre of demons from his universe. So according to this story, The Reboot Vergil is now dead, killed by the Original Vergil and thus also had his powers ripped from him to increase the Original Vergil's already incredible power. I admit the Reboot Vergil was powerful (I've played the Vergils Downfall DLC) but True Vergil shines when he's in his devil trigger form, able to execute a powerful barrage of judgement cuts across a large radius whereas Reboot Vergil cannot do it to that degree, furthermore true Vergil draws and sheaths his blade almost instantly to do a judgement cut whilst reboot Vergil must fully draw his blade and sheath it at a human pace in order to activate the judgement cut. If the two were western cowboys with revolvers, True Vergil has the faster draw. (Technically the way a Katana is designed is for a quick draw attack which means in either case True Vergil draws his sword faster and when in Devil Trigger can move so rapidly that he becomes truly invisible when using a Judgement Cut Barrage or the repeating air-trick &amp; helm breaker)**

**From the previous chapter, Assault Tigers are an original demon that I've thought up. They have blue scales and a dragon like appearance though their body profile is more closer to a tiger. Their primary weapon is their tail which has a blue color with an orange bladed tip which they use to stab, impale or sweep. The Guardian of Fire was effectively a more powerful Assault Tiger form and incase those of you who saw or played DmC, yes the Guardian of Water was effectively an armored Witch Demoness. I gave her a bit of character as she unlike most other demons Dante has encountered was not holding a grudge against him for being the son of Sparda though at the same time had unwavering loyalty to Kylanos and the Demon World (Unlike Beowulf [DMC3] who had such a hate for Sparda that he saw his sons with just as much hate as Sparda himself.)**

**Till next time. -Kylandor**


	5. Chapter 5

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being an alternate reality)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 5 - Awakened.

* * *

Character : Ray

* * *

Ray entered a large room with two other entrances, as far as he could tell Dante and Vergil had not yet caught up to him.

In the room was a pillar, seemingly capable of being rotated and on it there were four different inscriptions which seemed to be indicative of the pillar needing to face a certain direction. Ray found that despite never having seen or heard this language before he now fully understood it, perhaps an effect of either his infusion or awakening.

Suddenly a horde of about 20 Marionettes appeared along with 30 Hell Lust demons (The Lust demons were agile with a scythe for quick attacks though still were lesser demons not worthy of having a name of it's own.)

Ray drew Hunter and noticed the change in it's shape and sent a stinger at one of the Marionettes and then flickered behind it after the stinger sent it flying, sending a roundhouse kick into the demon causing it to shatter. When Ray unleashed a three way combo against a Hell Lust the sand along with red orbs seemed to absorb into his sword as if it was feasting on the victim's blood.

Ray continued with a simple six strike Combo which was one sword strike after the other, the final hit killed the Lust and Ray quickly rolled to the side to evade two more lusts charging at him. Ray noticed the color of his sword's blade was slowly changing to a blood red as he continued to slash through the Lusts, Marionettes didn't seem to charge it however as they had no blood, instead being puppets sustained by energy alone.

The Marionettes were easy enough to kill, well placed shots from White Eagle, Ray's preferred firearm, did the job.

Soon only a few lusts remained only for Ray to charge energy though his sword as he reshifted it into Predator, sending pressure cuts at the remaining lusts, slicing them clean in half from a safe distance.

Ray reshaped the blade into Hunter and rested it on his back and began to read the inscriptions on each of the pillars and noticed there were inscriptions on the walls that finished the tale the inscriptions showed.

Ray began to rotate the pillar so that the matching stories faced eachother and then a door appeared and Ray sensed a time limit of 30 seconds with his abilities, primarily that was how long it would take for the pillar to return to it's position and hide the door once more. Puzzles were neither Dante's nor Nero's forte though there is the possibility that Vergil could solve it as quickly if not faster than he did. Ray darted towards the door only for a Hell Vanguard to appear and a red seal appeared over the door. He had to kill this demon within 27 seconds as it took 3 seconds for him to activate this defense.

Ray realized he had charged his blade enough to do something and decided to draw hunter and shifted it into a different form.

The blade itself was as wide as Rebellion, the blade a glowing crimson red, it's design was similar still to Alastor but with some differences aside from a skull design instead of a bat design, mainly the wings instead of being bat wings were black feathered wings in design, mirroring Laura's wings. The eyes in the skull were no longer empty, instead having red orbs within them which seemed to be slowly fading in color, eventually they would be grey.

Ray immediately assumed within this second of analysis that Melee strikes with Hunter, Predator or Reaper will charge his sword so he can shift it into this new form, Bloodlust and that how powerful it was depended on the blood of the demon it struct, which meant if he had to fight Dante, he may now actually have a chance as he could use Dante's own power against him, assuming he could land a blow as Dante is a master swordsman, able to deflect with ease the tactics Ray can use. In point of fact Ray based his sword skills by observing Dante and before meeting Dante, based on second hand accounts of Dante's fighting style which meant that Ray was both Self-Taught and simply mirroring Dante with less efficiency, he needed a new tactic and his form shifted, his right arm turned into a demonic form, similar to Nero's devil bringer but this arm was black with red claws instead of red with blue claws. Ray also felt as if this wasn't his own power but rather Laura's power, meaning that he and Laura are likely the same now as it was her energies that were infused into Ray, she did that to save his life from an otherwise fatal injury.

It was that action that kept Ray moving, the fact that Laura didn't leave him, a mere human, to die meant that she indeed had a heart and she valued everything Ray had done beyond simple assistance, they were the closest of friends.

Ray dashed to avoid a strike from the Vanguard and grabbed Bloodlust with his Devil Bringer, charging the blade further and as the namesake, gave Ray a serious killing intent, it was more than that also, he felt pleasure as he drove his blade into the Vanguard with 20 seconds to spare until the pillar returned to a normal position. As Ray dashed back and fired several charged bullets from White Eagle his heightened senses detected footsteps in the other tunnels, gunshots confirmed that Dante and Nero were catching up to him. Two black feathered wings tore from Ray's back, also tearing slits through his jacket's back though he paid no attention to this as he then charged at the Vanguard who teleported behind Ray, intending to decapitate him with the Scythe only for Ray to pause time for a second, instantly turning around and executing a rapid 10-way combo in under 2 seconds, a trail of red demonic energy with the smell of blood followed Bloodlust's blade, the blood from the Vanguard maintaining and resupplying Ray's devil trigger state as he then executed an air trick and then with a move mirroring Dante's Helm Breaker, slashed downwards whilst magically propelling himself down, slicing the Vanguard in half.

Lesser Demons didn't seem to faze Ray though he now had only 18 seconds to go through the door which was no longer protected by a Red Seal.

Ray darted forward, remaining in Devil Trigger to keep up his speed and as he went through the door, it disappeared leaving a wall behind him and a new corridor ahead stood before him. Not long after his sword's red orbs became grey and it reverted to Hunter and his Devil Bringer reformed into a normal human hand.

* * *

Character Change : Dante

* * *

Dante continued to charge through the corridor, he was now dead serious, a rarity. Using Ebony and Ivory to kill any demons that tried to stand in his way he made it to the main room at the same time as Nero who was seemingly exhausted whilst Dante was unaffected by fatigue. An exposed door was relevant and Ray was visible on the other end. Dante was about to charge forward when the door disappeared, a click caught his attention with the pillar in the middle shifting into a different position. Dante read the inscription for a short period before becoming bored by it and attempted to hack through it with Alastor, the pillar didn't budge, there wasn't even a cut or indenture on it. Nero tried using Yamato to send a judgement cut to where the door was but it didn't damage the wall, and this was a judgement cut with both demonic and angelic energies, twice as powerful as it used to be.

Nero looked towards Dante and said "Looks like some kind of puzzle." Dante sighed and said "Man, I hate these things. Especially when they force me to read."

* * *

Character Change : Ray

* * *

Ray reached the other end of the corridor, the lack of resistance was getting to him, Dante and Nero were obviously being opposed heavily as gunshots erupted from the other corridors but Ray's transition was unopposed, if he had been forced to fight perhaps he and the others would have arrived at the same time and after the last incident he wasn't likely to be on friendly terms with them. Ray checked his crossbow, he had 22 tranquilizer bolts left. Although he could magically generate lethal bolts as much as he wished much like how he and Dante operate with their firearms but Ray had a limited supply of the tranquilizer which was not easy nor quick to concoct as the ingredients were either expensive, well guarded or illegal and furthermore it had to sit for some time and in order to affect demons he had to imbue it with demonic energy.

The room around Ray had a massive gate ahead of him, closed, two of four locks were opened and the third was unlocking.

Ray focused his attention forward, Laura was near some type of altar with Rebellion placed in some kind of keyhole as she was turning it until finally the third lock was open, one remained and Laura withdrew Rebellion from it's keyhole, placing it on her back next to the Spear of Destiny, the weapon seemingly under her command despite the fact that it's attuned to Dante, not Laura. Then it struct Ray of why she was able to take and use Rebellion in the first place. According to legend Kylanos was the blood relative of Sparda, his brother, making him Dante's Uncle, which technically meant that Laura was Dante's cousin if true.

Laura turned to face Ray, a sigh seemed to make itself known from her as Ray slowly walked towards her in a non-threatening manner though still his crossbow was now out in the open, visibly latched onto Ray's left shoulder next to Hunter which was resting on his back, both weapons attached through demonic energy and no physical harness.

Laura drew and held Rebellion out at Ray who only stopped walking when he was just barely touching the tip of the sword. Ray spoke, saying "Laura, please don't make me fight you seriously. It's only a matter of time before Dante and Nero figure out the puzzle. I knew the story beforehand which is why I got through so quickly, they will have to read the inscriptions in detail before knowing which side faces which end and if Nero decides Vergil may have the answer, they may get through the door quickly. A Hell Vanguard isn't even a warm up for them."

Laura sighed and replied "Raymond, just don't get involved, please." Ray replied "I'm already involved. Dante underestimated you and so did I but that's not going to happen a second time. I darted ahead because he now intends to kill you if necessary. So please, stop this madness while there is still time. If you don't then I'll have to fight seriously, if that happens I could hurt you." Laura closes her eyes for a moment before saying "I've already opened three of the four locks, that means Kylanos will be able to escape on his own in less than a month. It's already too late. Once those two catch up I will need to seize Yamato. If what you said is true then you need to help if you truly don't want me to die."

Ray sighed and flickered back slightly which caused Laura to hold Rebellion in a combat stance. Ray drew Hunter and said "Do we really have to do this?" Laura nodded and replied "Yes, unfortunately we do."

Ray sighed and his face went serious, he charged towards Laura who rolled to evade a stinger and prepared to send her version of a driver at Ray who dashed to evade and shifted Hunter into Predator, sending pressure cuts towards Laura who took flight to evade though one of them cut her left arm, though the wound healed Laura noticed that Ray although not intending to kill, seemed to be willing to cut off a limb or two to stop her. Ray dashed to avoid a blast from the Spear of Destiny which Laura quickly drew and fired, this blast was half force, enough to knock Ray out if it hit him but still not enough to kill. Despite the words spoken they were still holding back, but not as much as before.

Ray reshaped Predator into Reaper and flickered behind Laura, sending a barrage of quick cuts with the weapon, drawing blood and cutting Laura across multiple places, her armor unable to withstand the Devil Arm's attacks. Laura dashed backwards only for Ray to quickly attach a chain to the bottom of the scythe and then threw Reaper towards Laura who evaded it only for Ray to magically pull on the chain, causing Reaper to suddenly fly back, the blade making a deep cut across Laura's lower abdomen, if she were an ordinary human she would have been killed.

Laura noticed as Ray shifted his weapon into the Hunter form that there were now slightly pink jewels in the skull's design as well as the blade slowly changing to a blood red color.

Laura summoned what appeared to be a Tec-9 full-auto pistol and sprayed a burst at Ray, the bullets finite in ammo but charged with energy. Ray dashed to avoid the barrage and drew White Eagle, firing as if it were full auto though obviously it wasn't on it's own, his reflexes and speed along with the gun's design allowed for rapid fire.

Laura had a limit of bullets and soon ran out trying to intercept Ray's gunfire. Discarding her pistol she grabbed both Ocatvius and Rebellion, holding them in her left and right hands respectively and darted into the air with her wings and then attempted to dive bomb Ray with the blades only for him to roll to the side and unleash another barrage of bullets which embedded themselves into Laura's arms, legs and torso, causing intense pain even for one with such power.

Laura shrugged off the pain and charged at Ray with a flurry of attacks from both Octavius and Rebellion, holding each in one hand as if they were weightless. Ray parried some strikes and evaded most of the others as some managed to make deep cuts in Ray's shoulder and chest.

Laura then vaulted Rebellion at Ray who wasn't able to evade the attack entirely as it sped through Ray like a missile, slicing a large tear through his abdomen on the opposite side from where Ray injured Laura beforehand. Like with Laura, Ray's wound healed and if he were human, he would be dead.

Ray and Laura charged eachother as Rebellion began to spin around heading back towards Laura who grabbed it as Ray ducked to avoid being sliced in half by the weapon only to unleash an upward thrust with his weapon in Predator form, slicing a complete upward line across Laura's armor and drawing significant blood which Laura noticed that instead of thrashing across the room, it was absorbed into Ray's weapon, a red jewel was forming on the bottom of the grip of the Katana and it's blade was changing in color, now a crimson blood red, the jewel just as bright and crimson.

Ray dashed back and shaped Predator into Bloodlust, activating his Devil Trigger and charging at Laura who seemed to activate a Devil Trigger of her own, her arms and legs scaled and black, her face remained human in appearance but the skin tone became pale and her eyes glowed with a demonic red hue.

Both unleashed several sword strikes as gunfire could be heard in the corridor, Ray had realized that Dante and Nero must have now solved the puzzle and it was only a matter of time before they came here to interrupt the fight and worse, either open an opportunity for them to kill Laura or for Laura to take Yamato and unleash Kylanos upon the world.

Ray evaded a sword strike from Octavius and used his demonic powers to charge himself with red electricity thus causing a change in form as his black wings formed, similar to Laura's own wings. Laura dashed to the side and sent a forward dashing upward slash (A move she called Striker) though Ray grabbed her blade with both his hands which were now both demonic in appearance, like Laura his face and hair were human but his body more closely resembled some kind of black organic armor which was capable of withstanding the force of a devil arm.

Ray charged forward, using a sudden twisting of Laura's arm to disarm her of Octavius and then toss it aside.

Dante and Nero appeared only for several Assault Tigers, about 73 in number, appear in the large room impeding their progress towards the main fight.

As Dante and Nero battled the lesser demons trying to break through Ray spun about, drawing his crossbow and rapidly firing three tranquilizer bolts at Laura who barely avoided the rapid barrage as Ray in his devil trigger state was much faster than before.

Ray charged energy into his hand and clenched it into a fist and then rose it up, summoning a torrent of demonic energy beneath Laura, sending her forcibly into the air and as the torrent of energy continued like a tornado, eventually it violently threw her to the ground, a sudden cracking sound from Laura's shoulder briefly made Ray hesitate in following up with any other attack though he aimed his crossbow at Laura after a second, saying "Laura, give up. You seem to have given me more power than I originally thought. I'm you're equal in pure strength but tactics are on my side."

Laura's arm moved on it's own, putting itself back into a natural position as before it was horribly twisted, that energy vortex had broken her shoulder and arm in several places though it was healing, Ray however had used the last of his Devil Trigger energy to invoke that power and was back to a fully human appearance, his wings having receded into his back.

Laura sighed and made a sudden dash, she wasn't holding back any longer, she quickly impaled Ray with the Spear of Destiny before he could act further and fired a shockwave from it, tears rolled down her eyes as Ray hit the wall on the edge of the room with a large, cauterized injury where his stomach used to be.

Ray slowly rolled over to look towards Laura, barely able to summon a golden orb he had managed to acquire some time ago and pressed it against his chest, the orb absorbed into him and for the moment, nothing happened. Laura noticed this and drew Rebellion, ready for another fight only for a blast of lightning to hit her from Dante's direction.

Ray's eyes glowed red for a moment as at the second he should have died, the gold orb took effect, instantly healing his wound and even repairing the damage to his clothing around it, he was also fully rejuvenated by the orb's power. He had another one, but he had no intention on using it on himself.

* * *

Character Change : Dante

* * *

Nero was still fighting off some of the demons that remained as Dante had dashed ahead, focused on stopping Laura and getting back his sword.

Dante switched to Trickster in order to close the distance, Laura was seemingly exhausted, her last action having been a desperate move and she was in no position to face against Dante.

As Dante charged forward with a stinger he was suddenly parried by Ray who was wielding Hunter, using his own energies to channel a red lightning through the blade in order to counteract Alastor's blue lightning.

Dante said "Get out of my way kid." Ray didn't reply, he instead sent a shockwave of demonic energy forward, pushing Dante back slightly as Laura got up and sat near the altar with the four differently shaped slots, resting in order to recover her stamina and energy as Ray began rapid fire with White Eagle in one hand and swinging Predator with the other, sending both bullets and pressure cuts at Dante, intending to keep him at a distance. Dante however wasn't having any of this and attempted to access Quicksilver only for time to remain in normal flow. Perhaps being so close to Kylanos' seal prevented any form of time dilation.

Dante switched to Royal Guard and began to roll forward between pressure cuts and barrages as he maintained the defensive sphere of energy around him. Ray flickered behind Dante and managed to get a single cut with Predator just before Dante immediately turned around in a roundhouse kick, sending Ray back quite a distance. Dante drew Ebony and Ivory and fired a barrage of rounds aimed at Ray's legs though Ray immediately activated his Devil Trigger and the bullets barely did anything to his now armored legs. Dante's blood must have enough energy surging through it to charge Ray's DT considerably with only a single cut.

Nero fired a pair of explosive rounds from Blue Rose which Ray dashed to the side to evade as they hit the wall behind him, detonating just out of effective range from Ray.

Ray noticed that Nero had finished off the last of the assault tigers that were harassing him though just as he noticed this, Laura flew towards Nero, striking at him with Octavius which Nero barely managed to parry with Red Queen, Nero was being smart here, not calling on Yamato as that was the very thing Laura was after.

Dante took advantage of Ray's momentary distraction and sent a stinger at Ray who though was at the edge of the impact, was sent flying back by sheer force as a Stinger isn't just a driving forward thrust, it retains it's inertial force and then releases it forward after hitting a target meaning it wasn't for impaling opponents but for sending them flying backwards though Dante has the skill to withhold that particular feature in order to impale a target, this however was a conventional stinger attack.

Ray back flipped into a battle stance with his weapon in bloodlust form and aimed the sword at Dante, sending a barrage of 12 red demonic bolts of energy which Dante managed to evade though the blasts accompanying the bolts did send a wave of energy from them but Dante was far enough that this did little more than flutter his trenchcoat.

Ray charged forward as Dante summoned his new Devil Arm which Dante called Ravager, the scythe he got from the Guardian he faced.

Dante unleashed a flurry of attacks with Ravager as Ray began parrying these flurries with Bloodlust. Ray noticed the red arc following Ravager and dashed back before he got caught in it, assuming it to be hazardous.

Dante drew Ebony &amp; Ivory and began a barrage which Ray started darting to the side in order to evade, returning fire with White Eagle. Dante switched to Swordmaster and charged Ravager with a pulse of red energy, sending it flying towards Ray as it also left a trail of the toxic aura. Ray threw Hunter like a missile and it slammed into Ravager, intercepting the attack before it could reach Ray.

Ray and Dante recalled their weapons and a rumbling interrupted their fight as both looked towards the altar to a grim sight.

Laura had acquired Yamato and had opened the final lock, Dante didn't sense Vergil's energies so he assumed Nero didn't call upon him.

Ray flickered behind Laura and parried a streak sent from Nero's Red Queen, Nero was still alive and in action but had attempted to use Yamato to defeat Laura when Red Queen was insufficient and as a result she was able to take advantage of his inexperience and managed to steal Yamato.

* * *

Character Change : Ray

* * *

Ray stared at Laura who turned to face him, tears rolling down her eyes as the gates suddenly threw themselves open, sending a shockwave which destroyed the entire temple around them. When Ray came to he was lying in the snow outside the temple, Dante and Nero in sight, also lying in the snow, having been blasted back by the shockwave though Laura wasn't in sight. A massive red arc of energy was shooting into the sky in place of the temple which barely had any remains, most of the exterior walls looked heavily torn asunder from the shockwave and there was a complete lack of a roof, the door and pillars were shattered and spread across, Ray noticed a piece of shrapnel from a pillar where his liver should be. Ray simply tore the intruding object from his body and noticed it wasn't healing as fast as it should be so he summoned a Vital Star L and crushed it over the wound, healing it almost instantly.

Dante sat up and was rubbing his head, saying "I'm getting back my sword, anyone have any objections?" the last 4 four words he said staring in Ray's direction.

Ray replied "We need to focus on recuperating and dealing with Kylanos, Laura isn't the problem anymore, her father is free and our only option now is to either kill or seal him." Dante replied "Any problems with that?" Ray scoffed and said "I don't give a damn about Kylanos, cut him up into tiny cubes if you want. I need to find Laura first though, I'm pretty sure we'll need Rebellion and Yamato back."

Dante nodded and said "It seems Nero is out cold for the moment, I'll wake his lazy ass up, in the meantime we need to stop fighting and you need to see if you can get our swords back. I'm calling in backup on this one so expect Trish to show up sometime soon with Sparda."

Ray stared at Dante for a moment before saying "Okay, fine, make things worse by giving Kylanos the chance to acquire the strongest Devil Arm that we know of."

Dante shrugged and said "He shouldn't be able to use it to it's full potential, although Sanctus was able to manipulate it he was nowhere near capable of using it as much as I was because he wasn't a relative of Sparda." Ray replied "Well according to the stories on the pillar and the walls in the temple, Kylanos was Sparda's brother and helped him craft Force Edge. Which makes the demon we gotta kill your uncle, and Laura your cousin."

Dante sighed and said "Just when I thought I set my family affairs in order, this happens. Why didn't you tell me this before?" Ray replied "I wasn't aware of it entirely until I read the inscriptions on the Pillar and on the Walls in the puzzle room."

Ray got up and walked over to the seaplane which was parked nearby and dug around in it, grabbing a customized M4A1 with a rail sight, grenade launcher attached along with a bayonet, laser sight and several clips as well as taking off his damaged jacket and putting on a black trenchcoat with a black Kevlar vest under it. Placing White Eagle in a new holster and slinging his Assault Carbine as well as several clips of ammo and some grenades. Ray also slung over his shoulder a M870 Combat Shotgun which was modified so he could magically reload it without causing problems for the chamber and barrel.

Whilst Ray was walking towards the ruins after resupplying Dante shouted at him, saying "Good Luck kid!" Ray shot a short glance at Dante before again facing towards the aura of energy and walked forward, knowing that the temple was gone and this arc of light was in fact a portal to the demon world, specifically Kylanos' old palace. Dante was no longer acting brash and flamboyant at the moment, making a phone call to get reinforcements in the form of Trish. Knowing that his opponent is a blood relative of sparda as well as the fact that Laura is Kylanos' Daughter and by extension Dante's cousin explained how she was able to use Rebellion and Yamato the way she did, it also meant he had to tell Trish to not, emphasis on not, bring the sword Sparda, instead having her bring every other Devil Arm Dante has collected in the past, from Cerberus to Lucifer.

* * *

Ray stepped into the center of the beam of red light, there was no resistance on his way here and the crater that used to be the temple seemed to be devoid of any presence, be it demon or human. Laura was most likely in the demon world now and Ray was worried that Kylanos would order her to attempt to kill any intruder and would punish her if she isn't able to do so. Keeping this in mind he holds the picture of Laura he took several years ago, softly rubbing his index finger over it before placing it safely in a pocket in his trenchcoat as gravity became nullified by the beam and Ray was pulled upward, into the demon world.

* * *

To be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being an alternate reality)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 6 - A Final Duel

* * *

Character : Ray

* * *

Ray's vision blurred for a second as he entered the Demon Realm, his vision returned as he saw a large castle with pitch black metal construction, a stairway led from his location to the castle's gates and Ray felt a surge of energy begin to flow through him, as if being this close in proximity to Kylanos increased his power. He wasn't going to bet anything that he could take on Dante but perhaps this would be enough to face the Demon though this also meant, as his power was given to him by Laura, that she was likely stronger in this place as well.

Walking up the stairs Ray reached the gate which was closed to him, this time real resistance made itself known as several assault tigers appeared around him in vast numbers, all intent on killing him.

Ray picked the closest target and sent a stinger forward and followed with several strikes with Hunter, ending the lesser demon's life quickly as the others dashed at him with killing intent, Ray spun his sword in a spiral to repel the attack from all angles and began a relentless game of stingers, 3-slash combos and backrolls to keep ahead of his opponents, occasionally drawing White Eagle to keep a different target at bay as he relied on striking his primary with Hunter to increase his sword's charge.

An hour seemed to pass as the endless hordes of Assault Tigers began to chip away Ray's stamina as he skirmished them as much as he could, a sudden barrage of bullets from the stairway killed most of the tigers to his side, revealing Dante and Nero charging into the fight. Dante began executing rapid and deadly combos with Alastor whilst Nero, having been disarmed of Yamato relied on Red Queen and Blue Rose for combat.

Ray was focused on getting to the gate and as he had charged Hunter to full, he used a stinger to slice through an assault tiger blocking his path and left the battle to Dante and Nero.

Activating his Devil Trigger after reaching the gate Ray charged energy in his sword as it shifted into bloodlust and with all his power hit the gate with a upwards slash, creating a small opening in the gate but not destroying it entirely though all he needed was an entrance and this was it.

* * *

Ray continued forward into the castle's open interior and noticed several doors, Ray focused his senses, intent on finding Laura first and convincing her to undo what she has done, having tried several times before did not stop his intent, he wasn't going to give up on her.

Ray's search of the castle seemed unopposed as he made his way across corridors, checking various rooms which seemed to either be dining rooms or living quarters until he found an open clearing in the center of the castle, the sky was blood red which seemed to be normal for this part of the demon realm, Laura stood on the other side, Rebellion and the Spear of Destiny on her back, Yamato sheathed on her left just above Octavius. Currently no blades were in her hands and she was simply looking at Ray with a saddened face. Ray didn't reach for Hunter, instead approaching, Laura also made a slow approach towards him, the situation unnerved him and his fears seemed to be confirmed as both the door ahead and the one behind him became blocked by red seals, no demons made themselves known which said only one thing.

Laura was his opponent, and Ray had one of two options for escape, either kill her to unlock the seals (Simply tranquilizing her won't break these types of seals) or use brute force on the seals, being ordinary red seals if he had the same energies as the constructor of the seals, it was possible and since Laura was the one who gave him his power, he could do it.

The two stopped within arms reach of eachother, Laura's saddened face stared at Ray whose expression was more pained than saddened.

Ray spoke first, saying "Either you or Kylanos forged those seals. Because you gave me your power, I can break them without meeting their conventional requirements." Laura nodded and said "I forged the seals, one of two things will happen here Ray. Either you kill me and continue this suicidal task to stop Kylanos or you surrender, join the ranks and fight by my side. I don't have a choice, I've only decided to do this because if I didn't Kylanos could have sent his minions to threaten you and even though we could fight them, we could never have a peaceful life. This path is the only path where peace is possible. Please.."

Ray sighed and said "I can't side with Kylanos, I refuse. I also refuse to kill you, a third solution is going to happen. I'm going to convince you to change your mind, even if I have to beat reason into you, then you, me, Dante and Nero are going to kill Kylanos or at least seal him away, return to the human world and you and I can live average lives. Even if demons start coming after us then we can just join Dante in his demon hunting business and make them fear us, make them hesitate to come after us."

Laura looked at him for a moment before saying "That isn't happening, It's just not possible. You don't understand, Kylanos isn't just Sparda's brother, he is Sparda's twin brother, all the power Sparda ever wielded in his prime is at Kylanos' disposal."

Ray replied "Then Dante can't lose, he's already surpassed his father's skills, give him his sword and hand Yamato to Nero so he can have Vergil wield it and victory is assured, especially if you and I pitch in as well. Laura if you truly believed there was no hope, then why the hell did you save my life? You should know by now that I can't stand life without you."

Laura closed her eyes, tears started to roll as she clenched her fist, she snapped at Ray, shouting "You're just too damn hardheaded on this. There are impossible situations in life, there are things that we simply cannot accomplish. I barely convinced my father to accept a situation where I let you live. He considers you an affront to his lineage, that what I did to save you was too far. If you can't stand to live without me then let me enlighten something about how I feel. I can't stand to live without you! It's more than just friendship, I've loved you since the day we met, I never said anything because I was afraid to, too scared to think clearly and later as I got older I was scared that you didn't feel the same way or that-"

Ray interrupted her, grabbing her and holding her with his arms wrapped around her tightly, so tightly that rebellion which was resting on her back slightly cut his right arm. Ray spoke softly though enough for her to hear, saying "Then you know exactly how I feel about you and I assume you were about to say that you were scared that confessing your feelings would jeopardize our friendship. If that is the case then you were wrong, so terribly wrong. I will never give up on you, on the idea of ending this horrid affair without betraying my original mission. I will protect you as I always have, from cults, from demons, from your father, from yourself if necessary."

Laura closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Ray, holding ever so tightly as she said "I want to believe you, I truly do. That we can prevail against Kylanos. But the solution that is most likely to work is my solution. Can't you see that? Can't you see reason?"

Ray relaxes his embrace and says "I agree, it's the easiest solution but it's not a solution I can live with. Kylanos being unleashed on the world will bring nothing but death, pain and misery to billions of people. No matter how corrupt the world may seem it's still undeserving of the hell that will soon be unleashed."

Laura sighed and released her embrace, gently pushing Ray away and walking back a short distance, Ray simply looked at her with a saddened and heartbroken face as Laura draws Yamato from it's sheath.

Ray began to walk back a distance as well, grabbing and holding Hunter in a battle stance, the two close their eyes for 10 seconds though to them it seemed like an eternity.

Both opened their eyes, Laura's tears stopped flowing and Ray held a strong will in his eyes. Laura dashed forward to which Ray rolled to evade as she thrust Yamato forward, Ray sent a three-way slash combo mirroring Dante's conventional attacks, hitting Laura with each hit as her armor did nothing to resist the devil arm, the upper plates of the armor fell to the ground and Laura decided to discard the rest of the armor, dissipating it leaving her in a simple black sweatshirt and black jeans, her weapons that she had acquired remained in proper place, seemingly adapted to her now lightweight attire as she dashed forward, Ray parried a four-slash combo from Octavius and as if mirroring Dante's trickster style, air tricked above her and dropped with a Helm Breaker which missed as Laura dashed to the side to evade.

The first five minutes of this fight were drawn out, the two either parrying attacks or dashing to evade sudden and powerful strikes, Ray had drawn first blood though Laura had yet to land a single hit, she realized Ray wasn't holding back at all, as if he had decided to kill her. Laura stepped up and used Yamato to execute a judgement cut which Ray barely evaded, his arm badly sliced in the process though he ignored the pain and opened fire with White Eagle, several rounds made their way into Laura's left shoulder as she flickered behind Ray who ducked to evade a heavy slash from Rebellion and as he noted that Laura was able to rapidly cycle between her weapons, so was he able to rapidly shift Hunter into it's other forms, performing an upward slash with Predator he made a deep vertical cut across Laura with the weapon though the injury seemed to heal quickly as Laura dashed to the side and impaled him with Yamato and then sent a surge of demonic energy from the blade, blasting Ray into the wall on the other side of the courtyard. Ray groaned, his wound didn't heal instantly and he was out of Vital Stars though he decided to shrug it off and press on, shifting Predator into Hunter he began a rapid 6 slash combo which Laura parried with both Rebellion and Octavius and retaliated by dual-wielding them in a spinning attack that she mentally remembered as Devil Spiral.

Ray held Hunter in a defensive position, resisting the attack which pressured him hard, almost causing him to lose his footing as Laura stopped spinning and rebounded from her last strike and when in mid-air she drew the Spear of Destiny and fired several quick discharges as Ray dashed to evade, resting hunter on his back and unslinging his Assault Carbine as he took cover behind a statue.

Laura landed as gravity decided to take effect only to be met with a burst of 14 rounds from Ray's rifle, the bullets all went clean through due to their high caliber.

Though her wounds began to heal, they were getting slower each time and a single loud shot instinctively told Laura to roll as a grenade detonated where she used to be. Laura drew Rebellion and sent herself in a stinger attack at Ray who charged demonic energy through his rifle and dashed forward, using the Bayonet as the tip for a stinger like strike. Both weapons' attacks parried eachother though Ray immediately unloaded the remaining rounds of his rifle's clip nearly point blank into Laura, one of the rounds went through her head though to a demon, this wasn't necessarily a fatal injury as the wound staggered her, but healed quickly thereafter.

Ray darted back to cover as Laura found another statue to take cover, holding the spot on her head where she was hit and seemingly had decided this was enough, resting rebellion on her back and summoning a devil arm that was seemingly an exact duplicate of Hunter, even answering to the same word played out in her mind.

Laura started dashing towards another statue closer to Ray whilst he opened fire with his rifle again, even launching a couple grenades to no avail though he did notice Laura was seemingly wielding his weapon, it was also his awakened version, with black feathered wings designed into the hilt.

A burst of demonic energy erupted from Laura as she entered into her devil trigger state. Ray summoned and activated a Devil Star and activated his own Devil Trigger and dashed outwards with his rifle slung over and Bloodlust drawn, Laura had the same idea and the two clashed swords, both wielding the same design, both blades red with spilled blood.

Ray and Laura remained in place, executing various sword strikes and parries and as though to the human eye they were standing still, their arms and blades were blurring and clashing, sending sparks and causing bursts of purple demonic energy to erupt from between the clashing swords.

Ray quickly jumped to evade a strike and with his left hand, drew his shotgun and fired from above point blank at Laura's upper back. Laura quickly summoned and activated a Vital Star L to heal the injury and spun herself with Bloodlust into a black and red spinning top form which tore deep into Ray's side as he dashed twice to avoid being cut in half. The injury began to heal but slowly, slow enough that blood began to seep from his wound though none thrashed about from the blade's impact, instead being absorbed into Laura's weapon which confirmed Ray's theory that the two use the exact same power to the point where they use duplicate Devil Arms as their primary weapons.

Ray's injury healed by the time Laura recovered from her attack and exhaustion and blood loss caused him to stagger forward slightly. Laura was similarly exhausted from the fight and was breathing heavily as she looked at Ray. She clenched her teeth as both Ray and Laura ran out of energy for their devil triggers at the same time. Ray shifted Hunter into Predator as he was no longer able to wield the larger version one-handed and readied himself in a normal fighting stance, Laura reshaped her own Hunter into a duplicate Predator as well and readied herself in a similar stance.

A few moments passed before Ray and Laura charged at eachother, at human speeds just before their swords clashed. The two executed various attacks though it seemed as if two humans were fighting, not two demons, exhaustion taking it's toll on them to the point where they were ordinary humans.

Laura ducked to avoid a slash and made an upwards slash while rising which cut Ray's shoulder slightly, it also sliced through the straps holding his rifle and shotgun and Ray ignored his firearms falling to ground and ducked to leg sweep Laura.

Laura quickly sent her leg in a kick, knocking Ray to the ground as well and the two got back up, recovered their stances and resumed their duel.

Ray saw an opportunity to strike as Laura slowed in her movements for a moment and he seized that opportunity, disarming Laura of her weapon and followed with a single forward thrust of his blade through Laura's chest.

Ray slowly withdrew his blade as Laura collapsed, bleeding profusely as Ray set his sword on his back as it reshaped into Hunter and he knelt down over Laura, summoned a golden orb, the last he had and placed it in Laura's hands.

Laura didn't say anything, merely crushed the orb in her hand and it's energies flowed through her, at first doing nothing. Laura closed her eyes and slowly she felt nothing for a second, the red seals dispersed and a golden aura made itself about Laura, causing her to slowly open her eyes at the sight of Ray, her strength restored entirely she sat up whilst Ray remained in a sitting position, exhaustion clear on his face for a moment before he lose consciousness, Laura held onto him to prevent him from collapsing and remained there, holding her closest friend tightly as she let herself cry. He wasn't dead, but she knew how extensive his injuries were, even though most of them had healed, not all of them, his shoulder had a cut that although wasn't bleeding heavily, it was still trickling blood. His side which used to be torn open from one of Laura's attacks beforehand was not fully healed just yet, there didn't seem to be any internal damage but it was still bleeding lightly.

Despite the pain he obviously had endured, he fell unconscious with a smile.

Laura began to beg whomever would be listening silently in her mind that he make it past this, no matter the consequences to her.

* * *

Character Change : Dante

* * *

Dante unleashed a barrage from both Ebony &amp; Ivory into the last of the Assault Tigers whilst Nero crushed a green star in his devil bringer's palm, rejuvenating his vitality.

Dante was about to use his last Vital Star S when he felt some strange feeling in the back of his head, he had gotten these feelings before and they were usually right. He instead decided not to summon it and looked at Nero who merely nodded in confirmation of an unspoken question of "You ready?"

The two charged into the hole Ray was kind enough to leave open for them and proceeded into a large room with various doors. Almost immediately several Abyssals appeared around them and red seals appeared on all of the doors, Dante clenched his teeth, his healing was starting to slow but the demons were still being relentless, he could only assume Ray might be in trouble if not already dead based on his gut instinct and decided to save the vital star for later, he had enough energy to devil trigger as in that state his healing is greatly accelerated. He would learn sooner or later what happened to Ray, in the meantime he had a lot of small fries to kill and the level of resistance he and Nero were getting was beginning to frustrate him.

Someone was going to pay big time, very rarely does Dante get pissed.

* * *

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being an alternate reality)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 7 - S-Showtime!

* * *

Character : Dante

* * *

Dante shoved Alastor through the last of the Abyssals that appeared before him and Nero. Instead of having his usual toying around face Dante was visibly pissed which seemed to cause Nero to be more afraid of his friend than the demons attacking them.

Placing Alastor back on his shoulders several more abyssals appeared as well as a Hell Vanguard. Dante was about to Devil Trigger when yellow lightning erupted from behind them, stunning the enemies and killing some of the weaker ones. Dante and Nero simply gunned the survivors down with their firearms and Dante looked behind him with a serious face as he said "Took your sweet time getting here.".

A blonde woman who resembled Dante's mother to absolute perfection sighed as she took her sunglasses off whilst saying "Don't be so stingy, you're the one who called for backup and if you're so serious then why didn't you have me bring Sparda?"

Dante shrugged off the comment and said "Because apparently we're going after my dad's brother, he might be able to wield the weapon as well as my old man and that wouldn't be a good thing. You wouldn't happen to have a few extra Vital Stars would ya?" Trish nodded and tossed a Vital Star L at Dante who caught it with ease as she said "Didn't think you'd need any." Dante merely absorbed the Vital Star as if storing it rather than using it and faced the door which is now unsealed, saying "Not for me, I got a bad feeling that our new friend may have bitten off more than he could chew and I'm usually right about bad feelings."

Nero took a few steps forward and spoke, saying "Well if you're so concerned for him then we should get moving"

Dante nodded and walked forward only for the castle to shake violently as if the rooms where changing when suddenly a black substance, neither crystal nor oil yet somehow resembling both ripped from the walls and altered the area around them in odd and unusual positions.

A voice spoke, sounding exactly like what Dante remembered as his father's voice.

"Ah, so my nephew decides to follow his father's footsteps. You will find that I have learned much from my confinement. I seek to test your adaptability here Dante, Limbo was a sub-realm that linked man's world and the demon realm in another reality. You and your brother faced your dopplegangers, now face what they fought in a test of your skill. I even have a duplicate Mundus for you to face."

Dante replied "You're pronouncing it wrong, his name is pronounced Muundus, not Mundus. Never thought a demon would get their king's name wrong though ordinarily I wouldn't care." Kylanos replied "Ah but in his realm that apparently is how his name is pronounced, no matter as I expect you to lay waste to these obstacles very easily. Your comrade is lucky my daughter decided to spare his life but then again the man is weak, having refused to advance even when he was the more skilled and more determined. I have pulled challenges for you to face and using Limbo I can manipulate them to forms I find suitable, you will find that many realms have their own versions of demons. Let us see if your father indeed passed on his strength to his sons."

The voice went silent and Dante was feeling agitated severely, this demon was toying with them as several Styx demons appeared, these styxes were slightly different as they had a darker look and were more intelligent than the previous ones Dante had faced, he decided to coin a moniker for them as Elite Styx.

Trish simply sighed as she drew her dual pistols and began firing lightning charged rounds into the demons around her, Nero charged at one with an Ex-Streak whilst Dante simply sighed and activated his devil trigger with Alastor in hand and quickly took to the skies and electrocuted the demons around him with an Air Raid and as he returned to normal form he sent a Helm Breaker downwards and cut a surviving Elite Styx clean in half with Alastor's lighting detonating the remains.

Dante dashed forward, outpacing Nero and Trish who realized he wasn't holding back anymore.

* * *

Dante darted forward through what seemed to be an abstract terrain, the walls started to cave in on him and he could swear someone was using their powers to send visual cues or insults at him, if what Kylanos said was true and his doppleganger had to put up with this then he felt a little less hate and more pity for him to only have childish small fries to fight, especially because in the devil hunting business, you want a challenge, not a turkey shoot.

Dante managed to get away from the closing walls and several demons appeared, some burning red and others seemed to burn light blue, Dante could swear he felt a bit of angelic nature to the blue ones though Dante lacked any angel weaponry and probably couldn't use any if he came across it though still, there were ways around this problem as he reshaped Alastor into Cerberus and began striking at the blue creature ahead of him which he wanted to call a Frost Knight but felt that would make it compare to a Frost, this thing was nothing like a frost, it's moves predictable and though as Dante drove Cerberus into it without any stagger he was too evasive for the demon to hit, using the trickster style Dante evaded and then got close, executing a windmill motion attack with the Icy-Cool weapon which finished the job, ordinary weapons could kill these things they just couldn't stagger them.

Dante summoned Ifirit, a demonic pair of gauntlets that burned with hellfire and struct at the red demon, this staggered the creature which gave Dante a smirk as he begun to enjoy the fights again though still making short work of them. Dante battered the Hell Knight with a standard combo then executed a devil trigger and sent a Kick13 move forward which was a burning roundhouse kick and when devil triggered, was followed by several rapid punches equally ignited with hellfire. Rolling back Dante unleashed several flaming fireballs from his hands at the Hell Knight, ending it's pathetic life.

Dashing further as the walls decided to close in on him again he made it with time to spare across the seemingly endless corridor until he reached what seemed to be a representation of a seaside carnival and a large monkey like demon appeared, it drew a large knife and charged at Dante who simply switched to Royal Guard and executed a Royal Block, making the Hunter's attack worthless.

Dante unleashed a barrage from Ebony &amp; Ivory on the demon's head to no effect so he charged demon energy into the weapons and fired again, red lightning and energy erupted from Ebony &amp; Ivory, sending highly charged rounds right through the hardened skin of the Hunter, making it's 'Bulletproof' status null and void against charged shots, meaning Gunslinger was Dante's best style for this opponent.

The Hunter roared, causing a black mist to fill the area and sent his knife like a boomerang to try and catch Dante who switched to Trickster and evaded the attack and waited for the smoke to clear. As the smoke cleared Dante switched to Gunslinger and summoned Pandora and fired three missiles from it's crossbow-like formation before it resumed to it's suitcase appearance, the missiles blew open a gaping wound in the Hunter's head and Dante smirked, switching to Swordmaster and began to close the distance whilst firing Ebony &amp; Ivory at the injured Hunter, it's thickened skin torn apart by Pandora's missiles.

Dante got close and executed a High Time move both to attack the Hunter and evade a low knife slash, Dante then executed an Aerial Rave, a series of four airborne slashes with his sword, Alastor.

Dashing back three times Dante evaded several attacks from the hunter and used Pandora's gatling gun form to inflict heavy damage and then dashed close and switched it back to suitcase form and kicked open the case which caused a large demonic arm to rip from the suitcase and grab the Hunter's head to tear it clean off and toss it away like a broken toy.

Dante sighed and set Pandora back to normal and absorbed it for storage as Limbo collapsed around him, forming a new scene, one of an urban setting with a large creature with three eyes in front of him. The formation of the eyes reminded Dante slightly of Mundus and he assumed this was the mispronounced duplicate.

Dante simply switched to Gunslinger and skirmished the imposter for a few minutes and then devil triggered to finish him off with an Air Raid, causing the environment to switch again to a dry thunderstorm scene over a ruined city and a doppleganger of Vergil appeared before him, Dante sensed this was a demonic illusion and noticed Nero had finally caught up with him along with Trish. Dante smirked and said "He's all yours." and dashed past the false Vergil who charged at Nero who deflected the fake's attack with Red Queen.

* * *

Dante had again dashed ahead of his comrades and the Limbo was no longer around him, instead he saw a clearing which seemed to be in the center of the Castle, there was dried blood about and damaged columns, particularly a lot of bullet damage but nobody was in sight as the doors became covered not by Red Seals, but by White Seals, meaning brute force would not break them, he had to kill whatever was about to strike him to get through.

Immediately seemingly a clone of Phantom appeared, a lava-spider/scorpion demon Dante had faced on Mallet Island several years ago.

Dante dashed back and drew Alastor, saying "Well looks like a Rematch is in order." Dante began running to the side as Phantom injected it's tail into the ground, sending what seemed to be lava pillars from the ground beneath Dante's feet though Dante was too fast to be caught in the attack. Dante jumped upwards and send a Helm Breaker down at the unarmored parts of Phantom and rolled quickly to avoid a swipe from it's tail before sending a stinger point blank into Phantom's face.

Phantom jumped back and opened it's mouth to send a flaming boulder though Dante quickly rolled to the side and sent another stinger forward, closing distance Dante then jumps up and executes a Devil Trigger, attacking with lightning from his hands, another Air Raid.

Dante's DT Gauge ran out and he drove his blade down in another Helm Breaker and then rolling back he began to skirmish Phantom with Ebony &amp; Ivory, not so much as to damage Phantom but rather to charge his own energy as Dante was able to convert even modest damages and scrapes into energy to face his opponent. It was less so as effective attacks that charged his energy and more so performing feats and achievements that increased his adrenaline level, in short, the more Stylish Dante's fights, the more energy he pulled from his opponents.

Dante switched to Gunslinger and drew his shotgun and executed a Gun Stinger, finishing off Phantom with the move and then walking towards the other door which was no longer sealed.

Dante arrived at a simply hallway as behind him the door became sealed once more and a large Skeletal Knight appeared, the name Bolverk echoed in Dante's mind for some reason though Dante had never encountered this demon before.

Dashing forward with another Gun Stinger Dante then switched to Swordmaster and began to duel Bolverk seriously who quickly reacted to Dante's attacks and began parrying Alastor, Bolverk also summoned two white wolf demons which began to attempt to flank and dash at Dante who quickly rolled to evade and unleashed Ebony &amp; Ivory on them as punishment. After a prolonged 12 minutes of battle, Dante emerged victorious against Bolverk who before dying, slammed his blade into the ground and looked at Dante as if entrusting it to him, Bolverk then dissipated into dust and Dante grabbed the sword which changed shape and style, a blade which glowed purple with demonic energy and the grip shapeshifted to form a second blade protruding out the other end, Dante found that he could detach and re-attach the two blades and either duel wield against his opponent or use them as a bi-directional sword.

* * *

Dante walked forward only for the environment to change around him, showing once more the central garden of the castle but this time he saw two figures, Laura Kylani was holding onto an unconscious Ray who seemed to have a smile about his face. Dante could sense his life fading and grabbed the Vital Star L Trish had given him.

As Laura's guard was down Dante was able to summon Rebellion, it spun into action, returning to it's rightful owner which surprised Laura as she took a short glance at Dante, eyes filled with tears.

Dante felt a small smile make itself known from his face as he walked towards her whilst absorbing Rebellion for storage and keeping Alastor as his active weapon as unlike Rebellion, Alastor wasn't keyed to his blood but rather to Dante's soul as he was the chosen wielder of the devil arm and anyone else would be unable to wield the weapon as it would send lightning aimed at disarming the unintended wielder of it.

Dante crouched down over Ray and crushed the Vital Star L over him, healing his injuries and spurring him awake. Laura held tighter as Ray woke from his injured state, looking at Laura before turning his head towards Dante who said "Looks like you were right about her all along kid, Devils never cry."

Ray got up as Laura released her embrace and sat up as well, Ray looked at Laura and was about to speak when she shouted at him, saying "Don't ever do something like that again! I thought you were gone." Ray smiled and said "You should know me by now, it'll take more than that to do me in. More importantly, do you now see that the odds are shifting in our favor?" Laura clenched her fist but then relaxed it, looking at Dante for a moment before grabbing Yamato lightly, pulling it from her without drawing the blade and handed it to Dante who took it and absorbed it into himself, once Nero caught up he would give it to him. Dante spoke, saying "I'll give this back to the kid when he gets here, in the meantime how about we get ready to open up a few demons?"

Ray looked around as several assault tigers and Abyssals appeared around them and a voice began to echo, it was undoubtedly Kylanos and his voice sounded more demonic than the last time he spoke. He said "Laura, you indeed have a choice here, you can stay loyal and deal with the intruders or you can succumb to the hordes under my command along with them. If you truly wish to spend the rest of your life with the human then I shall grant that wish if you so desire." Ray summoned Hunter and held it at one of the Abyssals and took a short glance at Laura who without any words, gave her answer, drawing Octavius and pointed it at another demon, Dante smirked and shifted Alastor into Rebellion and grabbed the grip whilst saying "Well then, this is going to be one heck of a party!"

* * *

Character Change : Vergil

* * *

Nero had transformed into Vergil to fight the doppleganger once again only this time it was a shadowed self, following a specific regimen of attacks like a machine instead of a conscious opponent.

Though lacking Yamato Vergil was able to use summoned swords to mimic the weapon's form though not it's full strength.

Attacking with pure energy based weaponry Vergil seemed have an advantage in the fight though quickly the enemy became charged with lightning and began mimicking Vergil's appearance instead of the doppleganger Vergil's appearance and was in the form of a lightning entity, a Plasma demon.

Vergil quickly evaded an accurate lightning beam from the Plasma as Trish caught up and discharged several lightning charge rounds into the demon who was then finished by a barrage of summoned swords from Vergil.

Vergil stared at Trish with a degree of hostility, possibly offended by her appearance (As she was the spitting image of Vergil and Dante's mother.) before turning back into Nero as the DT Energy had been depleted faster than usual.

* * *

Character Change : Ray

* * *

Ray executed a simple four way combo with Hunter to kill an Abyssal and turned to deflect a Hell Vanguard's strike as Laura dashed behind the Vanguard and vaporized it with a full shot from the spear of destiny point blank.

Dante executed a driver to take down a pair of Assault Tigers whilst Ray flickered behind Laura and grabbed an Assault tiger's tail with a partially devil triggered right arm and gave the tail a quick yank which pulled the demon towards Ray who then kicked it with heavy force, severing the tail and sending the demon back as Laura turned around and fired a single pulse from the Spear of Destiny which then broke off into multiple energy projectiles that slammed into the assault tiger, killing it.

Ray smirked, mentally coining the term Lightshow for that attack as he turned around and executed an upwards slash mirroring Dante's High time and then sending a Helm Breaker of his own to send his target, an Abyssal back into the ground and although this didn't kill the demon, a piercing strike from Octavius wielded by Laura did.

Dante switched over to the Darkslayer style since he was holding onto Yamato until Nero caught up and began striking down several demons as Ray drew White Eagle and unleashed a hailstorm of rounds at a group of Abyssals who were then finished off by Laura who executed a move mirroring Nero's Streak with Octavius, slashing across the demons and ending them there and then.

The battle continued for several minutes until the last of the demons sent after them were killed just as Nero and Trish arrived.

As Dante tossed Yamato casually at Nero, Ray looked over at Laura who said "I'm sorry, I should have sided with you from the beginning." Ray shook his head and said "It's fine, we're on the same side again aren't we? We should just focus on ending this fight. You, me, Dante and his comrades can end this, not just seal Kylanos but end him. Prevent him from being a threat to mankind ever again."

Laura replied "It won't be easy." Ray made a slight grin as he said "Since when is it ever Easy? Besides, thanks to your confession I've got plans for life after this incident, we can't afford to lose." Laura grabbed his hand tightly and nodded as Dante approached, saying "We ready? I don't like demons that toy around with me and this Kylanos is really full of himself."

Ray and Laura nodded and as Laura let go of Ray's hand, Dante walked up and kicked open the door leading back into the castle.

The group entered and saw a hallway with several doors, one however, the end of the hallway was open and as they entered what appeared to be a throne room, there existed the form of a middle aged human with white hair like Dante's and wearing dark red and burgundy robes with an amulet around his neck similar but not exact to the one Dante has. Whilst Dante's amulet is gold and silver with a red crystal, Kylanos' amulet was black with a blue crystal.

Kylanos looked at Laura for a moment before changing his attention to Dante and said "So, my twin brother's son has indeed surpassed him. Tell me Dante, Son of Sparda. With all this power, what do you intend to do with it. Even if you manage to kill me, there are still other demons out there, countless and perhaps better explained is that we are legion."

Dante grinned and said "Well sure it'll take a while but sooner or later I'll get them all. It helps to have friends too." Kylanos laughed as if amused and said "Even so, there would still be more demons left. You, that creation of Mundus, the human who has your brother's power and soul infused in him, your new ally and apparently my own daughter. When it comes down to it, you can never kill all of us without also ending your own life." Dante replied "Sure, maybe by taking things literally you could say that. But what really separates demons like me and demons like you is the integrity of our souls. I aim to protect humanity as much as I can and honor the will of my Father and Mother who sacrificed much for this cause. Nero, Ray and Laura have people they love and they'll go above and beyond to keep them safe. Trish is basically on my side and if we find others to help, the cause remains the same. You on the otherhand, along with the others who see things your way, are just selfish with no regard to the lives of others. You've abandoned your own daughter because of her decision to support a human, you view my father who was your brother as being weak because he found himself to love humanity. That's the difference between us Kylanos, you see love as a weakness but we see it as our greatest strength. In the end whoever is right is whoever wins this fight and trust me, your odds aren't so good."

Dante drew Rebellion, Ray shifted Hunter into Predator, Laura readied her Hunter sword, Trish charged her guns and Nero summoned Yamato. Kylanos laughed and called forth Octavius with sheer willpower, it left Laura's hipside and came into Kylanos' hands as it changed shape, resembling Force Edge but with a longer blade and larger hilt and grip, Kylanos showed his true form and appeared exactly like Sparda, the spitting image of Dante's father in demon form.

Ray grinned and said "Ya know Dante I think I understand why you like to fight the big guys. Staring at someone giving off this much power is making my blood boil with excitement and anxiety."

Dante grins as he dashes forward, saying "It's called an Adrenaline Rush kid!"

* * *

To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notice: This takes place after Devil May Cry 4 and before Devil May Cry 2**

**For those who don't know and to give a better understanding to the readers, The Devil May Cry timeline is DMC3, DMC1, DMC(The Anime), DMC4, DMC2 (With DmC being an alternate reality)**

**The story will at certain points cycle between an OC's point of view and Dante's point of view (Or sometimes another canon-character's POV)**

* * *

Chapter 8 - S-S-Stylish!

* * *

Character : Ray

* * *

Dante dashed forward, immediately executing a stinger only for Kylanos to parry it with Octavius and counter with a single horizontal slash at a pace that caught Dante by surprise as the impact sent him back. Dante grinned as he crushed a Vital Star S to regain some of his strength and looked onward at the spitting image of his father. If Kylanos was just as powerful as Sparda then Dante was going to live up to the claim that he has surpassed his father.

Ray and Laura both executed stingers with their respective Hunter swords from different angles only for Kylanos to deflect both attacks with a red sphere of energy mirroring Dante's Royal Guard.

Trish simply barraged him with lightning charged rounds but they were having minimal effect, drawing blood yes but it was a weak response against a demon as powerful as Sparda. Nero sent several ranged slashes from Yamato which prompted a more serious reponse from Kylanos who dashed twice to avoid the attacks, a method that mirrored Dante's trickster style.

Kylanos laughed as he jumped then air hiked to avoid an Overdrive from Dante (A move involving three powerful energy blasts from Rebellion, ranged slashes effectively), saying "Fools! You fight as if dealing with a lesser demon. Sparda and I both developed the styles Trickster, Royal Guard and Swordmaster. I know all your tactics, all your moves."

Dante smirked and said "Really? How about Gunslinger?"

With those words Dante entered Gunslinger and rapidly unleashed a barrage from Ebony &amp; Ivory whilst holding them sideways, then after several dozen shots he twirled the guns and fired even faster, executing a move he called Honeycomb Fire, sending hundreds of bullets every 10 seconds at Kylanos who took substantial fire before air tricking above Dante and sending Octavius into a Helm Breaker which Dante reacted to by quickly switching to Royal Guard and executed a Royal Block.

Ray flickered behind Kylanos and began a move mirroring Dante's Million Stabs, a rapid multiple thrust attack which literally stabs your opponent one million times within a couple seconds.

Kylanos was staggered by the attack and Dante sent a three way slash combo which sent him flying as Laura drew the Spear of Destiny and executed a Lightshow, sending several energy blasts at the demon who was blasted on his back. The victory was short lived however as he quickly recovered and sent an Overdrive of his own at three targets.

Dante, Trish and Nero.

Dante royal blocked his impact, Trish rolled to the side to evade and Nero countered his with a Ranged Slash from Yamato much like when he faced Sanctus the second time only this time he was up against someone stronger.

Ray looked at the others only for Kylanos to appear behind him and gave him a quick roundhouse kick at full strength, enough to crack some ribs and send him flying across the room. Laura executed her Devil Trigger and with Bloodlust drawn she unleashed her version of Dante's Dance Macabre which more or less was a perfect mimic. Kylanos wasn't able to evade and was sent back by the final charged upper slash from Bloodlust as Nero grabbed him with the Devil Bringer and slammed him into the wall behind him, then on the ground, then in the ceiling and finally violently slammed him into the ground again only to send a heavy punch forward which sent Kylanos crashing through his throne chair, destroying it in the process.

Ray recovered and executed his Devil Trigger, turning Hunter into Bloodlust as he then formed a pulse of energy barely resembling a sword and more closely resembling a shaped pulse of red demonic energy. Mirroring Laura's Devil Spiral in a move he coined Roulette Spin.

The combined power of Bloodlust and the hand conjured energy pulse did a significant number on Kylanos who roared in response as he recovered, sending a shockwave in all directions with him as the center, pushing back Ray and Laura who were the closest at the time.

Octavius shapeshifted, mirroring the sword Sparda in appearance. Dante took a look at Trish who sighed and executed a summoning spell, arming herself with Sparda since Kylanos had his own copy.

Nero executed his devil trigger and then shaped the energy around him, transforming into Vergil.

Kylanos then seemingly released a shadow from his body which reshaped and reformed into a duplicate of himself. His Doppleganger faced towards Dante, Trish and Nero whilst his real body prepared to face Ray and Laura.

The Doppleganger made a single and powerful horizontal slash, sending the veteran Devil Hunters back to the courtyard which the Doppleganger then pursued them whilst Kylanos himself made a stinger like attack with Neo-Octavius (The name of Octavius when in awakened form) at Laura who rolled to the side to evade as Ray sent a three way slash attack with Bloodlust, finishing the combo just in time as it reshaped into Hunter and his DT Energy became depleted at the same time as Laura's.

Ray dashed back as Kylanos recovered and drew White Eagle, sending several bullets at the demon whilst Laura dashed to the side and channeled energy into her Hunter, sending an Overdrive at Kylanos who stabbed Neo-Octavius into the ground which generated a powerful defensive red sphere that nullified both the oncoming bullets from White Eagle and Laura's three Overdrive slashes.

* * *

Character Change : Dante

* * *

Dante dashed to the side whilst in trickster, evading a Drive from Kylanos' Doppleganger. He then dashed forward in a Stinger which hit Kylanos though Dante held back so as to not send Kylanos flying, instead switching to Doppleganger Style and formed a clone of himself which mirrored his movements. Dante and Doppleganger then both sent a 5-way slash combo at Kylanos as Vergil focused his energies and then executed his full devil trigger and dashed forward with Yamato in hand, now able to use his full potential having been rearmed with the weapon.

Executing a Judgement Cut End, a massive barrage of judgement cuts in his forward direction Vergil caused severe damage to Kylanos' Shadow and it seemed time for the shadow froze temporarily until Vergil sheathed Yamato slowly, the click of the sheathing causing time to resume effect as hundreds of slashes suddenly took effect on the Shadow, dissipating it.

Vergil returned to Nero's form as his DT Energy was depleted. Nero cracked his neck to the right as he said "Gonna have to learn how to do that myself sometime."

* * *

Character Change : Ray

* * *

Ray continued to attempt to skirmish Kylanos with White Eagle as Laura rolled to evade a High Time from Kylanos.

Laura drew the Spear of Destiny again and sent a single heavy pulse at Kylanos who air tricked above Ray to evade and then executed a Helm Breaker, the impact sent Ray back with a large gash which healed after a few seconds. Ray then sent a stinger forward and then turned that Stinger into a Million Stabs which after finishing, sent Kylanos back slightly as Laura suddenly jumped up to catch Rebellion which had been thrown by Dante.

Dante had darted ahead and his comrades had not yet arrived, meaning lesser demons probably began to annoy them.

Summoning Alastor Dante looked at Laura and said "I'll let you play with it for a while, you seem to have a knack for dual wielding."

Laura grinned as Kylanos formed summoned swords above Dante who switched to trickster and dashed to evade as the storm swords began to fly into the ground. Laura then executed a Devil Spiral with Rebellion and her Hunter whilst Dante devil triggered and jumped into the air and sent an Air Raid at Kylanos who took both strikes and survived, though his wounds were starting to heal slower.

Dante spoke again, saying "I'll give you this much credit Kylanos, even my fight with Mundus didn't last this long. But it's time to test drive my newest addition."

Shifting Alastor into Bolverk Dante unclipped the blades for dual wielding and sent several slashes forward in a constant run &amp; slash flurry before ending with a spinning attack similar to Laura's Devil Spin.

Kylanos jumped back after recovering only for Dante to merge Bolverk and charged it with demonic power, causing the blades to glow purple and he then began a multi-slash combo with the blades as purple arcs of energy followed them which caused an incendinary effect on Kylanos who evaded the final slash only for Dante to switch to Lucifer and begin advancing and stabbing red crystal swords repedatively until 12 swords remained behind him. Clapping his hands as the image of a red rose appeared in his mouth the crystal swords shot forward, impaling Kylanos and detonating immediately after, blasting him into the wall behind him.

As Dante swapped to Cerberus Ray sent a Drive at Kylanos, breaking the wall behind him, revealing a small room behind him along with a statue of the God of Time, the only one in the monastery and castle combined.

Dante grinned and sent Cerberus at Ray, latching onto his feet and throwing the dumbfounded ally right at the statue.

Laura took a confused glance at Dante whilst Kylanos dashed and sent a stinger at Dante, sending him back slightly as he said "Fighting amongst yourselves in the middle of a life or death battle? Like Sparda you are cocky in battle but unlike him you lack stradegy."

Dante chuckled and said "I wouldn't be so sure, do you have any idea how many demons that kid has killed to get here? Take a wild guess at how many red orbs and proud souls he must have accumulated at this point."

Kylanos didn't even have time to turn around as Ray hit him from behind with a much faster and stronger Stinger, it even over-penetrated, going right through him much like Dante's Devil Trigger enhanced Stinger.

Ray's eyes glowed Red as the knowledge flowed through him, he also then crushed a Vital Star L, followed by a Devil Star L as he stared at Kylanos, saying "I guess now we stand a real chance."

Kylanos noticed Ray's stance with his sword had changed, a style long forgotten, once used by Mundus to take power and then sealed away under Kylanos' watchful guard, that was until Dante tossed Ray into an impenetrable statue that grants power and knowledge to those that offer the blood of demons for alchemic items and their fallen and prideful souls for the skills and arts of warriors long past as well as to augment their own understanding. Few realize also that Man did not invent firearms first, Demonkind held that honor.

Ray seemingly summoned two new firearms, both silver plated with the engravings "Twin Suns" and executed his own Honeycomb Fire as Dante joined in with Ebony &amp; Ivory which did significant injury to Kylanos who then recovered and shapeshifted Neo-Octavius into a scythe form and threw it in a spinning motion, a Round Trip attack.

Dante and Laura evaded as Ray shouted "Bladedancer!" and entered a defensive stance with Hunter, deflecting Neo-Octavius back to Kylanos who spun around to grab it without being hit by the blade.

Ray took initiative, shouting once "Vanguard!" and dashed three times forward and executed an attack mirroring Dante's Prop Shredder move (Holding out his hand and magically rotating his sword in a propeller motion to lift his opponent up and then repeat it for a longer duration to catch them as they fall in a near-perpetual torment of attacks) which sent Kylanos upwards once and maintained the spin as Kylanos fell onto the spinning blade, being hit 8 times before using an air hike platform to bounce out of harms way, his injuries healing slower.

Ray tossed a Vital Star M at Laura and shouted "Skirmisher!" and drew Twin Suns and began firing, this time the bullets where charged with demonic red lightning and Kylanos became evasive, seeking to avoid further injury though seemingly, he has had enough as a sudden rift and torrent of purple demonic energy erupted from him.

Dante shouted "You've got to be kidding me! All this time and he wasn't even in a devil trigger state until now?"

Kylanos grew twice in size, his teeth even sharper, his orange demon eyes now glowing purple and his overall appearance more of a monstrous beast than that of a human with demon features.

Kylanos shouted "This is the true look of the Sparda twins when in demon form. That which you knew before was only a partial form. Behold true power! Behold Despai-"

"Shut up." said Laura as she fired a Devil Trigger enhanced blast from the spear of destiny into Kylanos which sent him into the air, his right arm vaporized though it regenerated after only a few seconds entirely and his fingers extended as spears similar to a Mephisto or Faust demon. Laura evaded most but one impaled her in the left shoulder.

Ray switched to Vanguard and executed what seemed to be a ground version of an Air Trick, coined Shadowblur and he sent a single slash forward, forcing the impaling finger to retract back to Kylanos as Laura's injury healed quickly.

Appearing to help was Trish and Vergil, having killed the lesser demons that were trying to delay them. Vergil took a look at Kylanos' Awakened Form and said "So this is the true power that our father once wielded, the power that sealed away the prince of darkness. I can think of no better challenge for the Sons of Sparda than our father's twin brother, wouldn't you agree Dante?"

Dante shrugged and said "Yeah, I agree with you on this. Let's rock!"

Vergil and Dante drew their respective blades, Yamato and Alastor and charged forward as Trish skirmished Kylanos with lightning.

Vergil executed two consecutive Rapid Slashes and as he sheathed his sword, additional slashes appeared on Kylanos as Dante executed a Dance Macabre with an Alastor flair, the attacks charged with blue lightning and the final cut was a dark blue charge instead of a crimson red charge.

Ray switched to Bladedancer and executed an enhanced flurry of attacks coined Godslayer. (A move using the three primary forms of Ray's Devil Arm. A Dance Macabre mimic with Hunter, followed by melee attacks with Predator that ends with a powerful diagonal slash followed by a shadowed blur of energy, then swapping to Reaper to finish with several rapid attacks ending in a chain linked flurry that shoots forward, moving his opponent away form him whilst the scythe is magically controlled to continue the flurry before impaling his target and then slashing back into his hand, tearing through the impaled flesh in the process and then swapping back to Hunter to end the Godslayer attack with a Drive which can be extended into an Overdrive at which point the move is called Neo-Godslayer.)

Kylanos is blasted back by the final Drive of Ray's attacks, forced out of his Devil Trigger form and with Neo-Octavius reverting back to Octavius. In desperation Kylanos slams the blade into the ground once more, summoning three Blitz demons enhanced with sight (Ordinary Blitzes are blind, this means there is no danger of friendly fire for these variants) that engage Dante, Vergil and Trish whilst leaving Ray and Laura against Kylanos.

Ray takes a Vanguard stance whilst Laura dashes behind Kylanos but still keeping her distance and readies both Rebellion and her Hunter in a charging stance.

Kylanos takes a glance at Laura and says "This is not the end, you may have won here but there will be more, always many more." Ray and Laura don't grace him with a reply, instead they both charge, Laura with Rebellion and Hunter, Ray with Bloodlust as he executes a Devil Trigger, Kylanos attempts to duck and deflect but whilst that would be effective against two slashes, not against three as Rebellion decapitates him, causing a surge of energy to erupt, killing and exploding the blitz demons before their opponents could do it for them.

As a short and uneasy silence fills the room, a white glowing light leaves the corpse of Kylanos, converting the body into energy as it merges with Laura, giving her increased strength, agility and the ability to wield Octavius and Neo-Octavius in full, her eyes glow dark purple briefly before going to their human, green shade.

Before anyone can say anything the ground begins to shake, Vergil then says "Kylanos' power was the only thing keeping the portal open, we need to leave before we become trapped in the demon world."

Before anything else can be said Vergil's DT Energy runs out and Nero is returned to consciousness.

Not wasting time the group of five quickly rush to escape the rumbling castle as lesser demons try to stop them, Styxes, Hell Prides, Abyssals and Assaults all try to stop them in vain as Trish electrocutes them, Dante barrages them, Nero executes Devil Bringer strikes and Ray along with Laura merely slash through them.

They manage to escape through the initial gate before it collapses, sealing off Kylanos' castle from the human world.

The cold snow of Tibet a welcome sight and feel for them all.

Dante whistles as he looks at the ruined monastery and says "Well that was a one hell of a party. We gotta do this more often." Ray, Laura and Nero glanced at Dante as if saying "Are you ****ing serious?" whilst Trish isn't surprised at Dante's comment, having worked with him longer than the others so that none of his banter comes off as serious.

Ray catches on at the same time as Nero and says "Ah, right, I remember now, you're able to do this shit every day and ask for seconds." Nero looked at Ray and said "Well everything turned out fine in the end. Took your friend long enough to see the light though." Laura didn't reply, looking at Ray who nodded, saying "Well in the meantime it seems there's an aftershow."

Ray drew Twin Suns and unleashed them in a Twosome Time style against several Hell Prides that appeared around the group of five, killing them as several more appeared to challenge the devil hunters.

Dante smiled and said "Good, because this is what I live for!" and unleashed Ebony &amp; Ivory on a Hell Lust that appeared, Trish and Nero joined in with the gunplay whilst Laura began striking at her enemies with Octavius and tossed Rebellion at Dante who caught it and dual wielded Rebellion and Alastor to kill a few demons before switching to Rebellion as his primary.

Dante used each of his devil arms as the demons increased in number.

Rebellion.

Alastor.

Ifirit.

Cerberus.

Agni &amp; Rudra.

Nevan.

Beowulf.

Gilgamesh.

Lucifer.

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

The five devil hunters eliminated the remaining demons and returned to Fortuna to drop Nero off so he could be with Kyrie again, eventually he opened up his own Devil Hunting agency with surviving members of the Order of the Sword who saw things the way he did and only fought demons, having been kept in the dark about Sanctus' true intentions. Fortuna within a month became much like Eleanay City, Dante's hometown, where demons operate only in secret to avoid being torn asunder. Unlike Dante, Nero managed to avoid being neck deep in debt, occasionally he would make fun of Dante's financial stupidity whenever they crossed paths.

Dante and Trish returned to Eleanay City and continued to work semi-autonomously in the Devil May Cry business alongside Lady. Occasionally a young girl by the name of Patty Lowell cleaned up after Dante's pizza eating sprees, he had saved her before the Fortuna Incident from demons and was responsible for reuniting her with her mother.

Ray and Laura no longer needed to run and they paid a visit to Ray's family to reconnect and reminisce before moving to Eleanay City to join the Devil May Cry business. The two maintain a stable romantic relationship similar to Nero and Kyrie's relationship.

Kylanos, although dead, had actually planned in the event of his defeat however. A new threat indeed may make itself known but until then there is relative calm as only Lesser Demons cross paths with the Devil Hunters, and few in number at that.

* * *

Devil May Cry: Rise of Kylanos

Mission: Concluded.

* * *

**Afterword:**

**I decided to put an afterword explaining both Ray's newfound abilities and how I believe the God of Time statues work.**

**Since in the games the Statues can be accessed in-combat and seemingly pause time, I believe they enable instantaneous transactions for power which to the eyes of anyone not connected to the statue is an instant, no passage of time whatsoever, an instant display of newfound power that was not displayed before and new alchemy items such as devil stars and vital stars or Holy Water being available to the user of the statue.**

**Based on the difference of skills across the games I believe the statues are not all the same. Some only require Red Orbs for both items and skills whilst others require proud souls for skills and red orbs are only valid for items like in DMC4.**

**This means that the statues in the Temen-Ni-Guru, on Mallet Island, in Fortuna and the one in Kylanos' Castle all have different power sets encoded in them. Think of them as magical libraries enabling instantaneous transfer of knowledge and power as well as alchemic item creation points in exchange for crystalized demon blood, thus when Ray was thrown into the statue by Dante, that point of contact connected him to the statue and gave him access to it's contents. All the demons he faced awarded him, unknownst to himself even, hundreds of thousands of red orbs and proud souls, enough to jump from an improvised fighter to a well-trained fighter.**

**An Explanation of Ray and Laura's abilities.**

**Ray before coming into contact with the statue was an improvised fighter, relying on secondhand and firsthand accounts of Dante's combat style as well as trial and error approaches to using his demon energy. In short he relied on mimicking others around him to the best of his abilities such as Dante's movements and actions, Laura's attacks against him and his own flair to what he learned as beforehand he had no true swordsmanship experience. His Gunfighting abilities however were not copied except for Twosome Time as he had for 12 years been using firearms to keep the Cult of Kylanos away from Laura until her awakening occurred, thus he was already a skilled gunfighter before learning about and encountering the Son of Sparda.**

**After coming into contact with the God of Time Ray gained three styles of his own that he can switch between mid-fight like Dante.**

**Bladedancer:**

**A Style somewhat mixed between Royal Guard and Swordmaster. Bladedancer focuses on parrying attacks and executing counterattacks as well as rapid combination attacks with melee weapons. It has defensive options like Royal Guard and Improved Melee Options like Swordmaster. If put into a DMC game it would augment normal combos with additional attacks in the combo like DMC4 Special Edition Vergil's Devil Trigger form augmenting his Yamato Combo A.**

**Vanguard:**

**A style somewhat mixed between Trickster and Swordmaster, focusing on agility to evade and close the distance as well as varied offensive actions designed to keep enemies at distance rather than relentlessly assault them and thus has moves focused on pushing back enemies or juggling them in the air such as a Prop Shredder attack. Like Trickster Vanguard gameplay wise would enable multiple dashes as well as Air Tricks and a Ground Trick so to speak called Shadowblur.**

**Skirmisher:**

**A Style similar to Gunslinger, focused on ranged combat. This move naturally amplifies his gunplay, charging any fired shots with demonic energy like Dante's Devil Trigger in DMC4 automatically granting him charged shot for the duration of the DT. Skirmisher would also if put into gameplay would grant increased ranged abilities for Predator and Reaper as well as some augments for Hunter and Bloodlust regarding Drive and Overdrive attacks (Such as enabling four followup Drives for overdrive instead of two, making a total of 5 ranged slashes with the Hunter or Bloodlust form.)**

**Laura's Abilities:**

**Laura relies on resurgent memories as well as recent memories for her combat ability. Before her memory was sealed she lacked any firearm expertise and relied on advanced swordsmanship. Unlike Dante and Ray she hasn't learned to magically generate physical ammunition and thus like Lady, has a limited number of bullets for any firearms she has on her. As a swordfighter she fights similar to Dante and being a relative of Dante and by extension, Sparda she can use Rebellion, Yamato and Sparda to their full potential. Since Kylanos is the twin brother of Sparda, Laura, being his Daughter has the same potential of Dante though she lacks his experience since most of her life was spent in ignorance via sealed memories. Combat Wise she would be able to cycle through various bladed weapons and rely on special skills for ranged combat or limited ammo firearms.**

**Kylanos Summary:**

**Kylanos was originally though up in my mind as just another big bad demon along the lines of The Despair Embodied from DMC2 but as the story progressed I decided to give him some real character and make him Sparda's twin brother in order to provide a suitable challenge to Dante who normally can make short work of anything sent at him, facing someone with both Sparda's power and the ability to use it to it's full potential would provide significant challenge for Dante and if overcome, would showcase Dante's true power even more. Sparda's power was enough to seal Mundus after (supposedly) single-handedly fighting off nearly all of the demon realm which means if Mundus is resurrected sometime in the future, Dante would be more than capable of killing him next time instead of sealing him away.**

**Kylanos fights similar to Dante and even has access to three of his primary styles. As I showcased here Demons developed firearms first but never saw the need to improve them to the levels humanity has and thus this is why as far as I can tell only Nightmare and Marionettes use firearm based weapons. Trickster, Royal Guard and Swordmaster are at their heights of skill in Kylanos, perhaps surpassing Dante's ability with these styles however Gunslinger is a style unique to Dante and is thus an advantage he has over Kylanos.**

**Vergil's reappearance:**

**As in a previous chapter I stated my belief on how Nero got the Devil Bringer. I'll bring it up in more detail here.**

**I believe that Vergil after being defeated by Mundus just after DMC3 had half his soul warped and twisted into the Demon General Nelo Angelo and given a new weapon. Likely Yamato was shattered by Mundus only later to be resurrected by Nero. I believe that the moment Mundus defeated Vergil, his other half of his soul was sealed in Yamato in order to keep him from having the willpower to break free of Mundus' control. Once Dante slew his Nelo Angelo form his primary soul sought out a new vessel, resting itself in Nero's right arm, aka the Devil Bringer thus giving Nero demonic power (As to take from his quote "And on that day a voice echoed, saying 'I need more power!' thus to me that meant that part of Vergil's soul embedded itself in Nero's arm since Vergil's statement in his third fight with Dante in DMC3 was "I'm afraid our souls are at odds, I, need more, power."). Now that Nero has Yamato combined with the sight of a cheap imitation of Vergil being shown to him (The Reboot Vergil encounter with Nero/True Vergil) allowed Vergil's soul to be merged and re-awakened thus Nero has two souls, His own, and Vergil's, enabling Nero to transform into Vergil and let Vergil's soul take over for the duration of his Devil Trigger state. As far as True Vergil's powers in this fic they are a combination of his DMC3 style and DMC4SE style with a focus on his DMC4SE combat style. Side Note: Dante used one of Vergil's Force Edge combos from DMC4SE when he dual wielded Bolverk against Kylanos.**

**Hope you all enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. Till next time.**


End file.
